Slide Away
by funscone
Summary: DISCONTINUED.
1. Ignorance

Title: Slide Away  
Pairing: Hiro/K (Kiro)  
Genre: Angst/Romance/Fluff/General  
Rating: R overall  
Summary: Bad Luck is on tour through Japan and the US, and Hiro and K have to face the world of lies, media, edgy band members, intoxicated evenings, nerves, unrequited feelings, sorrow and above all love.  
Warnings: Eventual angst, eventual romance and fluff, some humor, some sillyness, some drunkenness, some of everythingness, some smex. So, something for everyone to dread :P  
Disclaimer: Maki Murakami's, not mine.  
Notes: This is going to be a series of ficlets to be read in a chronological order. I am writing these for a challengecommunity called 50gravi on livejournal, and decided to make a series out of it. Part of the challenge is to write fics about pre-determined themes (the titles of the chapters will be the theme it was written for), and as such this fic might contain themes which I normally would not pursue.

Summary: K tries to ignore Hiro to get some work done. Tries.

G.G.G.

Work was almost sacred to K Winchester. It was something he excelled at, and he prided himself to have worked his way to the top. He was a great manager, if there was a job to be done, K was the man who you could be certain to get it done. He didn't know if it was his gleaming smile or equally gleaming rifle that made people eager to comply to his requests, but wherever he went people went out of their way for him. Yes, K was brilliant at his job, and nothing–_nothing_–was going to distract him.

Not even Hiroshi Nakano.

Said young man was sitting facing K in the sofa in the trailer. K had ventured into the trailer to get some paperwork done. It was one of the more boring parts of his job, even though dragging home pissed pop-stars could be weary, it was still action. K liked action. Yet, he had come to the trailer to get some work done in the peace and quiet as the band members usually preferred to hang out with the crew in the makeshift assembly hall they set up in every city they visited.

Tonight, however, it had started raining. Shuichi and Suguru had retreated to the little 'arcade' as they called it: a tiny room in the back of the trailer where there was an x-box and lots of pillows. The squeaking noises from the game could be heard through the door now and then, mixed with the low sound of Suguru's curses. He was a very mild-tempered teen, but when it came to x-box games he showed a great vocabulary knowledge of the less appropriate kind.

Hiro–not being remotely interested in how many diamonds you could collect with the little animated crocodile in the game–had sat down with his guitar across from K at the table. He was plucking lightly at the strings, releasing low smooth tones into the air and not disrupting K at all. No sir. K was not even _noticing_ that Hiro was there. It was like the redhead with his silky hair and glittering blue eyes and the slightest dimple in one cheek wasn't even there. Not to mention how K did not see the way the light of the one lit ceiling lamp above them was shining in the red hair, the way the teeth was biting the full lower lip as Hiro smiled slightly and closed his eyes blissfully.

K shook his head. _Ignore it, ignore it, ignore it..._ he started chanting in his mind, trying to concentrate on the letter he was writing to the producer of the TV show 'Hit', which, opposed to what one might think from hearing the title, did _not_ feature people beating each other, but was an appreciated show for the latest top songs on the music charts.

"K?" Hiro said, "Does this sound good?" He played a little melody on the guitar.

K couldn't help his eyes rising to look up at Hiro–but before his mind could wander away down the path of Hiro's hair and how it stood out against the dark night which seemed to swivel around them–he forced himself to return to the letter. He contemplated his next line. What usually followed 'Hello'?

"K?"

He grunted vaguely.

"Are you ignoring me?" Hiro asked, smirking.

"I am." responded K, and was startled by the sulking tone of his own voice.

Hiro grinned and started to pick at the guitar again, yet this time it was an actual tune. K vaguely recognised it, but he couldn't really place it. He tried to focus on the letter again, but that became virtually impossible as Hiro started singing. It was low, so low it could almost be compared to a whisper, and along with the soft tunes from the guitar and the easy patter of rain on the windows it was one of the most soothing sounds K had ever heard. Really, he understood why Shuichi was the lead singer of the band, he was vibrant and easy-going and his voice had power, but Hiro... his voice held a smoothness, it was clear in its softness. They ought to record some ballads for Hiro to sing, or have him sing back-up vocals or- no. _Ignore ignore ignore._

K glanced up at the redhead and saw Hiro looking at him. Hiro was smiling while singing, his dimples making dark indents as the light had a hard time reaching his face, which was bent slightly towards the guitar.

K felt a jolt flare through his stomach, and quickly looked back down at the letter, somehow having to fight a blush from rising on his cheeks.

Mysteriously, ignoring Hiroshi Nakano didn't feel like ignorance at all.

G.G.G.


	2. Omelet

Summary: Shuichi wants Hiro to make him breakfast.

G.G.G.

"Hiro wake up. Hiirooo... Hirohirohirohirohirohiro-"

"I'm awake!" grumbled Hiroshi Nakano as he was abruptly woken by his best friend Shuichi Shindou one day in the beginning of their Japan-US tour. He tried to block out Shuichi's voice by covering his ears with his pillow, but the body of the boy, which was bouncing on his bunk in the trailer was less easy to ignore.

Hiro sighed and finally relented to the pink-haired teen, and opened his eyes.

"Hi Hiro!" the tone was much too cheerful for Hiro's mood after such an awakening, but he took it in a stride.

"Hey Shuichi. What's up?"

"I'm hungry." whined Shuichi, pouting.

Hiro blanched.

"Well go to the cafeteria then. I'm sure they'll give you some breakfast. You're the reason they're all here after all." Hiro said patiently.

"I can't. The Chef is sick and everybody's busy and they told me I had to do it myself and you know I can't cook and I'm hungry Hiro!" the last part came out in a whine, and Shuichi pouted again. "Please? Pretty please?" his eyes were wide and innocent, "Hiro?" he said in a small voice, lip trembling.

"Gah!" Hiro exclaimed, covering his face with his pillow, "Alright! Fine! I'll make you breakfast!"

"Yay!" squealed Shuichi and quickly disappeared out of the trailer, practically bouncing.

Hiro rolled his eyes and got out of bed. Shuichi'd be back for him if he didn't come, and he got whinier the more hungry he got. Not the most favorable scenario in Hiro's opinion. So he crawled out of bed and wiggled into the jeans from the day before, pulling at the ends of his night t-shirt, deciding that he did not have the strength to change it for another and made his way out of the trailer, pulling on his sneakers and combing his fingers through his tangled hair.

He stopped right outside the door when the blazing middle-day sun blinded his eyes. Hiro groaned and massaged his temples, trying to hide his face from the sun as he quickly walked over to the kitchen facilities.

He hadn't slept well enough to face this. He'd been up late the night before, not doing anything special really, just playing his guitar and watching as K struggled to write something or other. K had been quite adorable, pulling at his blonde hair and insisting that he didn't even notice that Hiro was there–though he kept glancing up at him every few minutes. Hiro didn't consider it a secret that he was more than a little infatuated with K, it was simply that nobody knew about it. He didn't boast it, he didn't deny it. It was a feeling and it was just _there_ if anybody would ever care to stop and take a look.

Of course, nobody did. There were always other things happening. Mostly those things had to do with Shuichi. The boy was erratic and you never knew what mood he would be in the next second. As such, people tended not to focus on the calm and collected Hiro, and that suited him just fine. He was not the person to flaunt himself–since he became famous he even had people to do that _for_ him–and he was sure he'd go a little crazy too if he got all the publicity Shuichi did. As it was, Shuichi was a greater risk for his sanity than the media. The boy was always up to something which he would then later need help to get out of. Hiro rubbed at his eyes as he pushed the kitchen door open. It was devoid of life–a blessing in his current state of mind.

He let the door slide shut behind him and went over and opened the fridge, eying its contents. It was huge. Boxes and packages of groceries stapled on top of eachother on cold metal shelves and he shuddered, goose-pimples rising on his arms. He was definitely too tired to make surprise trips into unfamiliar walk-in refrigerators. Finally he spotted a carton of eggs and drew a breath of relief. He could make an omelet. Right. And milk... There to the right. He quickly grabbed what he needed and made his way out of the cold room and into the welcoming warmth of the rest of the kitchen.

He whipped the ingredients together in a bowl and turned on the stove. He put a frying pan on the stove and poured the egg mixture in it when it was warm enough. He fried it on middle temperature, moving the coagulated mixture up with a wooden butterknife he grabbed a hold of when randomly rummaging through the top cutlery drawer next to the sink.

It was very warm as he stood there, waiting for the omelet to get done, warm and silent and Hiro relaxed, felt his mind shut down more and more, easing him into a lazy drowsiness. He shook his head. He was _cooking_. It would not do to fall asleep in Shuichi's breakfast. But he was _so_ tired. And it smelled very nice in the kitchen. Very very nice. But it wasn't omelet smelling nice.

That was all the warning he had when a voice spoke in his ear.

"Hello Hiro-kun."

Hiro jumped, lost his grip on the knife which fell to the floor with a clatter and almost fell face forward on the stove. Almost, because strong arms had wrapped around his waist, holding him away from the hot metal. He slowly caught the breath which had rushed out of him at the shock of the surprise, and turned his face to the man still circling him with his arms.

"Morning K."

Hiro's heart was thudding in his chest, no longer because of being startled but for the arms holding him and the firm body pressed close against his back. K began to pull back, his hands sliding softly over Hiro's stomach and then settling at the hips.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to scare you."

The words were spoken into Hiro's ear and he struggled not to shiver.

"Erm, that's ok, I was just, I mean, I didn't think..."

K grinned. "Uh-huh. So what are you making?" he leaned forward, peering over Hiro's shoulder, his entire body radiating warmth to Hiro where it was positioned close to his back. He felt himself flush with colour, and hoped that K would think it was from the heat of the stove.

Hiro exhaled. "Omelet. For Shuichi. He said the chef was sick."

K made a noncommittal sound and stepped away. Hiro suddenly felt very cold where he stood in the heat from the stove.

"It seems to be almost done. I'll go get him."

Hiro shrugged and turned away as K slipped out of the door. He stood quietly, just staring at nothing ahead of him, the thick smell of cooking eggs filling his nostrils. He vaguely noted that the eggs would be burned soon. Ah well, Shuichi would have to live with it.

G.G.G.


	3. Hair Tie

Summary: K needs a hair tie, and quickly.

G.G.G.

It was another early morning that Hiro was woken up with the pipe of a gun pointed straight at him. He groaned and swatted it away, grumbling a "Grow up you big sissy!" at the man he knew was standing beside his bed.

"Get up Hiroshi."

Hiro slowly lifted his head from the nice soft comforting pillow and glared at K.

"It's not time yet. My alarmclock hasn't rung. Go away." He snarled, once again burying his face in the pillow.

"I know. Technically you don't have to be up yet. This is a more... personal visit."

Hiro's heart thumped at the words 'Personal visit' and suddenly he found himself wide awake. He sat up grumpily, still glaring at K, trying to ignore the jitters in his stomach.

"Right. Personal visit. So what is it you want that is so... personal?" Hiro surely didn't mean it to come out that huskily. Really.

K narrowed his eyes a bit before answering. "I need a hair tie."

Now that Hiro thought about it, K's hair was not in its usual pony tail, but was flowing freely over his shoulders and torso. The thin streaks of sunlight that made its way through the Venetian blinds made stripes of his hair glow golden, and Hiro for his part couldn't fathom why K didn't leave his hair down more often. It framed his face nicely, he actually looked a bit angelic–not that Hiro'd ever dare to voice that thought. He liked his head where it was thank-you very much.

Hiro twisted his mouth to one side, scratching his head contemplatively. Hair ties...

"Somewhere in the bathroom, go get it yourself." He once again sank back into the welcoming and still warm bed. Only, there was no other sound of movement, and when he turned his head back again K was still standing there.

"What?" He croaked.

"Erm, no offense, but I'm not going in there." K stated solemnly.

Hiro rolled his eyes. He was a neat person usually. It was only his bathroom that got clustered with things, and that was mainly because he shoved everything in there when he cleaned. Ok, so maybe he wasn't that neat a person. He whimpered and untangled his legs from the covers, groggily stood up, and dragging his feet went over to the bathroom door. He ignored the pile of rubbish that toppled over as he opened the door, and squeezed himself in between the toilet seat and the sink before rummaging through a cupboard in search for the–as he came to realise–very hard to find hair ties. This was so stupid. His head was pounding, his feet were freezing, and his arm was stuck between the wall and a stray skateboard–why did he have that there anyway?–going more numb by the minute. He pushed away a bar of soap and a bottle of purple nailpolish–Shuichi's surely–to find a bottle of sun-tan lotion.

"Why do you need a hair tie?" He called out to K, just i _slightly_ /i frustrated.

His hand flew over what he thought were a couple of tweezers, and further back where there was something softer...

"It looks girly if you have long hair and it's not tied up." K answered distractedly.

BINGO. Hiro pulled out a bight pink hair tie triumphantly and smiled. Then he did a double take. Girly? He carefully slipped out of the door and closed it before anything had time to fall out. He walked up to K slowly, twisting the hair-tie in his fingers.

"Did you just call me..." he said menacingly, stepping into K's personal space, tilting his head to the side, "girly?"

K swallowed. "Y-Yes?"

Hiro glared and held the hand holding the hair tie out behind him. "I want an extra hour of sleep for this."

K wrinkled his nose. "It's pink." He reached out to grab the hair tie, but Hiro held it further back, and K's hand gripped around Hiro's wrist instead. "Twenty minutes." The words were spoken directly over Hiro's lips, and he struggled not to shiver.

"Forty."

K narrowed his eyes and held tighter around Hiro's wrist, where the pulse was beating madly. "Thirty. And I want you dressed and ready by then."

"Done." Hiro brought his arm closer to his body, K's hand loosening its grip and fingers sliding into Hiro's palm. Hiro took a breath, breathing in the clean scent of the other man, and pressed the hair tie into K's fingers. "There you go."

K shot him one last look before stepping away, grumbling "Pink," under his breath, and added, "8:30 sharp!" over his shoulder as he closed the trailer door.

Hiro sighed and reset his alarmclock. Though, looking down at his pyjama pants he realised that going back to sleep was not really an option anymore.

G.G.G.


	4. Candlelight

Summary: Erm... Celebration dinner party with the crew: its joys and disasters.  
Notes: This is for SilveredScales, even though it might not be very satisfying on the Kiro front. (Sorry about that...) Shu/Yuki shippers will be happy though. ;)  
And, yes. This is my lame attempt at humor. Savour it folks, this storywill turn into angst in the future.

G.G.G.

We had been on the road for a week when Shuichi's moaning about Yuki started to become unbearable. Despite the 20 minute phonecalls every morning and every night (the last 15 minutes of them usually consisted of Shuichi saying "No, Yuki, don't hang up!") Shuichi seemed to be missing his scowling boyfriend something terrible. Furthermore, it was terrible to be around him when he was missing said scowling boyfriend. I could see that it was wearing Suguru and Hiroshi out to be around Shuichi all day long when half the time went to hearing him whine about Yuki, (not to mention the three simultaneous panic-attacks that Sakano went through in the duration of just one hour) and so Operation Bring Yuki to Visit started. It took lots of persuasion; of book publishers, Tohma, and not at least Yuki himself. Though, by the end of the day (read: week, since Yuki is a very stubborn guy. Not to mention that he scowls a lot.) I felt that I could lie back with a job well done.

The evening when it was planned for Yuki to arrive—as a surprise for Shuichi of course—we had a little 'success party', to celebrate how great the tour had gone so far. There were brightly lit lanterns hung up in long rows, lining the tent openings, serpentine streamers curling over the tables, and a gigantic bill to pay for the catering we'd ordered for the night. It was bound to be a fantastic night. No pouting Shuichi's as far as the eye could see. If now Yuki could have remembered to call Shuichi—or even leave his phone on for that matter. As it was Shuichi was silently sobbing into his very expensive entré, and was not helping the matter at all. Hiro was rubbing his back soothingly, murmuring comforting words to him, but nothing seemed to help, not even the chocolate coins we had strewn (with special attention to Shuichi's seat) across the table because he used to grin and call it shiny chocolate.

No, Shuichi was miserable, and I couldn't help but feel like I'd failed him when I saw him sit and cry through the Coq-au-vin (it must have turned very salty after a while) and sniff over his sherbet. I had just given up all hope of ever seeing a smiling, creative, _working_ Shuichi ever again when there was the sound of quick and resolute steps coming towards the dining tent and a loud familiar voice booming; "Where is that punk anyway?"

I turned my head and nodded at Yuki as he appeared in the tent opening, then I turned to watch Shuichi's reaction. I was not disappointed. His lip was trembling, his nose was running, his eyes were puffy and red, but as he slowly stood up and stuttered "Yu-uki?" and Yuki answered with a nod, a wide happy grin spread on his face and he leaped from his seat and tackled the writer, who instantly let the minuscule smile slip from his features and reverted back to a scowl.

"Well, hello to you too you idiot!"

Shuichi didn't seem to mind the harsh words though, he just clung happily to the pissed-off looking author he'd pinned to the ground. He grinned up at Yuki, leaning in to kiss him when Yuki's hand came up and blocked the path of his mouth.

"You're not getting anywhere near my face with that nose." He stated blankly.

Shuichi sniffed loudly, wiping his nose on the back of his hand. "But Yuki, I missed you!"

Yuki rolled his eyes. "Get off me you twerp."

Obliging, Shuichi quickly got to his feet, and bounded over to the table again. "Yuki's here!" he announced loudly.

Hiro smirked. "Really? We hadn't noticed."

Shuichi frowned. "But there's no seat for Yuki..."

"Oh, we set up a more private table for two over there—" I pointed towards a table where two sets of plates and silverware had been set up.

Shuichi's face lit up, and he grabbed a hold of Yuki who'd come sauntering over in a slow pace. "Come on Yuki, I'm _hungry_."

"Well, that's because you're stupid enough not to eat..." I heard him mutter as he was dragged away by the pink haired singer.

I spooned up a bit of my orange sherbet and popped it into my mouth, closing my eyes, letting the dessert melt slightly before I swallowed it. The faintly spicy taste of oranges became more intense and lingered longer on my tongue. When I opened my eyes again I was instantly greeted by the sight of Hiro looking at me intently.

"What?"

He smiled. "Oh, nothing. You just made his day is all."

He gestured behind himself, and I looked over at the two who were sitting on their own at the other table, the short Shuichi grinning up at the tall blond as he tried to feed him sherbert off a spoon. Yuki scowled again, but I could see the small gentle smile that graced his lips as Shuichi lowered the spoon and looked down at the plate, biting his lip sadly. Yuki whispered something to him, and he looked up again, eyes sparkling with hope.

"Well, you know," I said, returning to Hiro, "I have to make sure that my band is happy so that they can preform at their absolute best."

He smirked, blue eyes dancing amusedly. "K, you big softie you."

"Excuse me for interrupting, but I'm going to put this punk to sleep, and he insisted that I inform you of his whereabouts."

I quirked an eyebrow, and Hiro turned around to look at Yuki sceptically.

"He's just being silly." Shuichi added in, "We're really gonna—"

Suddenly, Yuki's hand had been placed firmly over Shuichi's mouth.

"If you say anything, I'm never letting your disgusting nose near me ever again."

Shuichi's eyes grew big, and he nodded, quietly slipping his hand into Yuki's when he let go the hold he had over Shuichi's mouth. They walked away in silence, until Yuki glanced at the shorter man and snorted. "You _can_ talk now you know."

"Really?" Their voices were quite faint, but fairly hearable in the still night. "Hey guys!" Shuichi turned towards me, Suguru and Hiro. "We're going to—"

Yuki's stunned expression turned into anger in 0.1 blank.

"Why you little—"

"Play Monopoly!"

Yuki's hands paused, hovering over Shuichi's neck for a second before he grabbed the other's hand and quickly pulled him off towards the trailers.

I snickered and turned back to the two others who were still sitting at the table. Suguru looked faintly ill.

"Are you alright?" I asked him, "You look a bit... peaky."

"We don't have Monopoly."

"We don't?" I grinned.

"No." He offered me a small smile and rose from his chair. "I think I'm going to bed now. I ate too much. Goodnight."

He left the tent and I looked up at Hiro, the only person still left sitting with me at the table. The crew had already gone to bed since they were going to have an early morning the next day. Hiro looked pensively at the table for a moment, then he shoved a mountain of serpentine streamers aside to uncover some of the candles which had been hidden beneath them.

"Hmm... we didn't use these..."

Suddenly he leaned over the table, and grabbed a hold of my shirt.

"WHAT—"

"Lighter." He explained, sitting back with my platinum lighter with a curling K engraved on the side in his hand. He flicked the top quickly, and his long slender fingers held the lighter elegantly while he lit the candles. When he was done he held the lighter out to me, and as he passed it from his hand to mine my fingers accidentally brushed the underside of his wrist.

"So, Hiro... What Shuichi needs is Yuki, and all Suguru wants when he is down is a pint of orange sherbet, but what do you want?"

He smiled sadly. "Nothing."

I frowned. "Really? No new guitar strings, no favourite dessert, no illusive girlfriend to get a hold of?"

He bit his lip. "Ayaka and I broke up two months ago."

"You did?"

He nodded, not looking at me. His face looked sweet and innocent lit from below by the soft light of the candles, and I suddenly felt very protective over him.

"Why?" I knew I shouldn't pry, but they had seemed so good together...

He shrugged. "It couldn't work out. Not being as it was."

His words were doing nothing to clarify the situation to me. "Meaning...?"

He sighed, head bent, his hair hiding his eyes from my gaze. "I fell for somebody else." He said quietly.

I smiled a little. So maybe it was a bit of heartache he had, missing his new girlfriend.

"So why aren't you with her?"

"With who?" he looked up at me, frowning.

"Your new girlfriend." I clarified, and was a bit surprised to see him actually recoil a smidgeon.

"There's no girlfriend. I just like somebody. It doesn't mean that they like me or that we're together. Why would you just instantly assume that—" He paused, picking at a stray serpentine streamer, "Never mind."

"Sorry. Didn't mean to pry." I scratched my head, looking away from his face, away from the lit candles and away from the strange intimacy I felt. "I was just asking to see if there was anything I could do to cheer you up."

He smiled sadly down at the table, twirling the colourful strip of paper around his fingers. "Somehow I don't think you'll be able to give that to me." He said softly, putting down the serpentine on the table. He rose, leaning over the table a little. "Can I blow out the candles?"

I nodded dumbly, looking up at his sad face as he bent down towards the candles, and with a puff of breath made smoke swirl and the light die. Something in me wanted to reach out for him and tell him that everything would be alright, but with Hiro I am always at a loss at what to do. Nobody else is quite like him.

"Goodnight K."

"Goodnight." I said to his back as he slowly walked towards the trailers in the moonlight.

G.G.G.


	5. Sex Symbol

Summary: K watches Hiro play on stage.

G.G.G.

K stared up at the stage pensively. The lights needed to be raised a meter or two, and they still hadn't gotten the smoke containers in place. They were on time with schedule for the first time during their tour, and it was a relief to K who felt more relaxed than he had in days. He was just pondering how much they should raise the spotlights when the darkhaired Ekihu, K's second in command when it came to the practical management of the tour, walked up to him.

K smiled. "Morning Ekihu."

"Good morning Mr. K," Ekihu said with a nod, "I hope everything is in order."

"It's going according to plan today."

Ekihu breathed out visibly, and shot K a relieved smile. "Oh, that's terrific. Especially since Nakano-san wants to rehearse right now."

K frowned, gaze fluttering up to the spotlights again. "Just Hiro? What about the other two?"

Ekihu swallowed. "Well, when I knocked, Fujisaki-san only opened the door and threw and shoe at my head. I didn't knock on Shindou-kuns door, because there were... strange noises coming from there already."

K snickered and ran a hand through his hair. "Tell Hiro to come on in, we could use him for directing the spotlights. The lights also need to be heightened."

Ekihu smiled and turned away. "I'll see to it." He promised over his shoulder.

A few minutes later Hiro came sauntering in on the stage in jeans shorts, a loose grey t-shirt and a bandana tied around his hair.

"Morning Hiro."

He looked up and smiled. "Hey K. You don't mind me practicing a little I hope?"

"If I hadn't wanted you in here you would never have set foot on stage. Never mind that you're the star, what I say goes."

Hiro grinned. "Not subjecting to megalomania I see. I'll just pick up my guitar now if that is quite alright with you." He bent down and opened his guitar-case, pulling out a black and silver electric guitar, plugging it in at the side of the stage. He then proceeded to play a short tune softly on the strings, warming up his fingers. After a moment the tune turned into 'Anti Nostalgic' and Hiro started to move slightly in sync with the music melting from his fingers.

K watched him as he closed his eyes and tilted his head to the left, a concentrated but happy expression on his face as he cradled the guitar gently.

"So, Hiro, can you see the ocean of screaming fans that'll be here tonight?" K teased.

Hiro opened his eyes half-way, gazing lazily at K, mouth quirked upward to the left. "No," he said softly, "I only see you."

G.G.G.

"You know," K said to Ekihu, eyes not leaving the stage where Bad Luck was currently performing in front of a screaming horde of seemingly rabid fans, "I've always wondered how it could be that a person is completely average when going grocery shopping, but when they get on stage they become sex symbols, terribly sought after and rarely captured."

"It's all about the music really." Ekihu answered, leaning closer to K to talk loudly through all the noise in the concert hall. "I mean, take Nakano-san for example. He's got the right technique in, he really knows how to actually _play_ a guitar, not merely 'play' it."

K frowned and glanced at Ekihu quickly before turning his gaze to Hiro. "How do you mean?"

Ekihu smirked. "He makes love to it."

K blanched and stared at Ekihu, opening and closing his mouth a couple of times before he gave up and simply just looked at the other man in surprise.

Ekihu was still smirking, and some part within K was finding it all rather infuriating. "Take a look yourself." Ekihu said, and pointed at Hiro who was just stepping forward into the spotlight for a solo.

He stood leaning back slightly, holding the guitar lovingly as he tilted his head backwards, the pale blue light streaming down on him, giving him an air of something ethereal, otherworldly, so far out of reach that any attempt to approach him was to be quenched before it even began.

Hiro's fingers slid easily over the strings, and he made a slow gyrating movement in time with the music. It reminded K of the way he had moved during practice, and also of the words he had said. It was strange how Hiro could sound so sincere and assured when he was simply teasing, for surely that was what it had been.

_I only see you_.

An act put on to spur lust in the recipient, to plant that seed of desire which would grow to block the sun if nurtured...

K watched the rest of the performance in silence, eyes glues to the green-clad form of Hiro. When one thought about it, It wasn't hard to understand why Hiroshi Nakano was seen as a sex symbol.

G.G.G.

The next update might take a while. I've spoiled you with three rather quick updates now I think... Not to mention that the computer went insane and deleted this chapter when I had written most of it. Much angsting there I tell you.


	6. Punk

Summary: Shuichi manages to trick K into letting them have a 'Punk night' meaning a wild and drunken club visit.  
Warnings: Cursing

G.G.G.

I should have known it would all end up in a disaster the moment Shuichi said "punk night", but my cunning manager abilities must have been taking a nap that particular moment because before I realised what I had said Shuichi had taken the "when pigs fly" literally and thrust the pink mechanic flying pig (with wings and sound effects to boot) into my hands and scampered off, pulling Hiro along with him by the arm.

However, at the time I just stared at the box, pressed the 'try me!'-button and listened to the pig's oink, not a thought of what the night might entail in shape of inebriation and scandalous behaviour in my mind. When I came to the club that evening (the band had insisted they arrive on their own, "It wouldn't be blending in," they said, "to arrive with a manager who walks in ahead yelling for people to make way while waving multiple weapons in their faces." They're delusional, surely) I was a bit startled. Apparently, when Shuichi said 'punk night' he hadn't been kidding. The members of the sweet j-techno band Bad Luck had turned into dark-clad jeans-wearing safety-pin-sporting _punks_. Worse, it _suited_ them.

Shuichi saw me and Sakano first and came bounding up to us, the black streaks in his hair making him look like some odd flavoured kind of candy kane.

"Don't I look cool?" He said excitedly (and in normal tone none the less, which was amazing since we could hear him over the blaring music), twirling around on one leg and almost tripping as his foot stuck in one of the tears of his jeans. "Whoah, stumbly clothes!" He exclaimed and steadied himself on Sakano. He looked up and grinned, and I realised that he had had quite a lot to drink already. Before I could ask him about that though, he had thrown a glance over at the bored-looking Yuki not too far away through the throng of people. "See, Yuki always calls me a punk, but now I really am one!" He giggled delightedly and turned to go to the author, but I snatched a hold of his hand and asked where the others were. He pointed towards the far wall and winked before he wiggled out of my grasp and wandered off among the dancing people.

I rolled my eyes at him, making sure that he got a hold of Yuki before I started off towards the wall he had indicated, certain that Yuki would keep him out of trouble. Nearing the wall, the volume of the music became more friendly for conversation and I spotted Suguru and Hiro sitting at a table, clinking their glasses together and drinking deeply. I smiled and slipped into the nearest seat, which happened to be right beside Hiro, while Sakano sat down on the other side of the table.

"HEY GUYS!" Yelled Sakano, making Suguru who was sitting next to him wince. I leaned across the table and pried his hands from his ears.

"The music is much lower here, " I told him in a normal tone and he flushed slightly.

"May-maybe I should go get us drinks..." he said and rose from the chair again, and struggled into the crowd of dancing bodies and out of sight. I snickered lightly and turned my gaze to Suguru, and hesitated. He was nothing of the prim and proper keyboardist that I knew from work, instead he was wearing a Sex Pistols t-shirt that had the sleeves torn off and other mismatching sleeves had been attached with the help of a number of safety-pins. This however was not what had made me blanche. No, it was the dazed and relaxed grin on his face, and upon closer inspection his diluted pupils. Suguru was quite drunk.

I was instantly grateful that I had brought Kenny along. As it were the tall hulky man was standing in full view on the other side of the room, away from the busy dancefloor, and as I waved at him he started to make his way closer to our table. What would life be without bodyguards?

I smiled and turned to Hiro, dreading the worst, but he actually seemed quite collected. If you neglected the way he was leaning close to me and peering curiously at me through a lock of red har that had fallen over his eye.

"Hey K." He said cheerily, grinning at me. "Hee, that rhymes..." His words were a bit slurred, but he seemed reasonably clear.

"Hello Hiro..." I said slowly, "that alliterates."

His eyes narrowed slightly, and he bit his lip. Scratch that, he was drunk. "M'drunk, don't say stuffliketha'." He looked at me for another moment before tossing his head and leaning backward. "Whacha think? Shuichi said I shou' wear this. Gone barmy that one. Too much sex if you as' me."

I chose not to reply to the last comment–reasonable though I found it was–and looked over his outfit. Oh. Dear.

My mouth went slightly dry and Ekihu's words went through my head faster than you could say 'Guh'.

_He makes love to it_.

At the moment I could imagine him making love to many more things than his guitar. For example the torn jeans he wore. They were fitting tightly to his thighs, riding low on his hips, enough to show off the smooth-looking skin over his hip-bones. His shirt was tight and frayed in the edges, the black material clinging slightly over his chest–and I'm fucking married with child, I shouldn't be attracted to a happily drunk 20-something boy!

Somebody cleared their throat behind my back and almost relieved at the interruption I turned to see Sakano clasping a laminated drink menu in his hands. "Look, I don't know what you want and I don't want to spend the evening with you glaring at me so just... _tellmewhatyouwantandI'llgetit._" He said it all very quickly and stood panting as he thrust the list of drinks into my hands.

I skimmed it over for a moment, glancing at Kenny who was standing only a few meters away before turning to Sakano once more. "Start with the first one, I'll... work my way down."

Sweet inebriation. Here comes K.

G.G.G.


	7. Oops! Accident

Summary: Punk night from Hiro's POV.  
Warnings: Cursing and kissing. Beware of OC slash (sorry about that, but...my brain thought it fit :P). This one is also very sarcastic.

G.G.G.

It was with a sense that somebody else was inhabiting my body that I let Shuichi dress me up like his own big Hiro doll, my body moving, my mouth answering when spoken to, but my mind detached and resting. It didn't seem so bad while he was doing it, shoving my quite new but mysteriously torn jeans–which I thought I had tossed in the bin three months ago during my cleanup, but apparently they had somehow made their way into my closet again–at me, digging out a black shirt with frayed hems out of his own closet, fastening my hair into a semi-loose ponytail and coating my eyes with eyeliner. However, somewhere on the way to the club my mind started picking up on the scenario and the contented void it had left in my conscious part of the brain started to fill up with self awareness and doubt. When we reached the club and stepped out from the taxi onto the curb I felt embarrassed about the glances people were shooting me, and I decided right there and then that getting sloshed was indeed what I was going to spend the night doing.

Flicking the annoying red lock of hair out of my eyes–trust Shuichi not to be able to make a ponytail properly–I made my way over to the bar right after depositing Shuichi, Yuki, and a rather nervous looking Suguru at a table in the back where the music wasn't as overwhelming. There was a short queue, and I stood with my hands shoved into the back pockets of my jeans, trying to ignore the tightness of the shirt, the way it rode up with every move I made, and the way together with the low-cut jeans it managed to show off far too much of my lower stomach than necessary. When the girl in front of me moved away, carefully carrying two glasses filled to the brim with honey coloured liquid, the young man behind the bar turned towards me, looking me over with warm brown eyes, flashing me a handsome grin.

"What can I get for you gorgeous?"

I felt my face flush and I wanted to tear the hair tie off and hide behind my red curtain of hair–but of course, shaking my hair into place here would be closer to a pick-up line than anything I would ever come up with to say, so instead I bent my face down a little, leaned against the counter and gave the dark haired bartender my order. He nodded at me, sending me a grin and a wink and turned to fill up four glasses with beer, vodka&coke, and something pink with an umbrella for Shuichi.

"You alright?" asked a voice to my right and I jumped a little, casting Yuki an annoyed glance as he smirked and leaned against the counter in a far too relaxed stance for the atmosphere in the room.

"Fine." I said shortly, turning back to the barman who was now looking oddly at Yuki, scrunching his nose a little. I handed him the money and he tore his gaze away from Yuki, glancing quickly between us before handing me the change.

"Well," I said to Yuki, placing a glass of beer in each of his hands, "now that you're here you can make yourself useful." He narrowed his eyes at me and stalked off towards the table without a glance back while I flashed the barman a smile and followed with the other well-filled glasses clutched precariously in my hands.

G.G.G.

Two rounds later (acquired by Yuki) Shuichi was already quite on the giggly side, as was Suguru, but he was hiding it better. Yuki was scowling slightly into his beer, trying to fend off Shuichi's hands which were trying to touch him in inappropriate places and coax him to the dancefloor both at once. I was starting to feel less uncomfortable with the situation, but the plastic of the back of the chair was sticky against my slightly clammy skin, and I got up to head to the bar again as I drank the last drops out of my plastic glass. I caught Suguru's eye, pointed at my glass, and then at the bar. Suguru indicated his own glass and I nodded and slowly made my way through the throng of people which had appeared since I last crossed the floor.

The pretty bartender gave me an overly bright smile as I leaned on the counter and asked for two more drinks, and I supported my head with my hand, elbow placed on the counter, avoiding one of the many wet spots on the flat surface. The music was beating almost dully against my ears as I stood there waiting, and I was starting to forget about my eccentric-feeling appearance–it's quite strange really, on stage I can wear anything without becoming self conscious: outfits made entirely out of strips of fabric haphazardly fastened to each other, costumes looking different animals and vegetables, hell, even swimming trunks for all I'd care, but send me to the supermarket in my PJs and I'll want to sink through the floor–when somebody came up behind me, swept an arm around me, and breathed out over my face with an alcohol-stinking breath.

"D'you com're often?" a slurred voice said to my left. I was a bit inebriated, but not drunk, and clear enough to fully hold my bearings. I looked at the blond man beside me out of the corner out of my eye, aware that he was looking at me with a glazed expression on his face, mouth hanging open slightly, a bit of drool in one corner of his mouth. Another puff of breath over my face and I scrunched my nose, trying to wiggle away from the arm he had wrapped around my waist.

"Not enough to know if you've brushed your teeth any day in your life." I said before thinking, freezing up a bit and hoping he didn't hear me fully–it's never good to incur the wrath of a drunk man. Actually, it's never good to incur the wrath of a tall bulky man no matter if he's drunk or not. However, this specific copy of tall bulky drunk blond man found the comment amusing or alternatively too advanced for his current condition because he let out a 'HAhaha, you're pretty' and attempted to squeeze my right buttock.

Wide eyed I edged away, forcefully removing his arm and turning toward the bartender who was looking at me strangely. I tried to smile but it came out more like a wince as I thrust a note into his hand, grabbed the drinks and walked away.

G.G.G.

When K and Sakano arrived Shuichi had just convinced Yuki to dance with him–if you call it dancing to stand and glare at somebody who's jumping around in the middle of a bunch of people making undulating movements.

Sakano misjudged the volume of the music and went to the bar to hide his embarrassment. Sweet guy, really, he's just put under too much stress constantly. After sitting down, K studied Suguru for s moment, blue eyes glinting knowingly before he waved subtly at Kenny, the bodyguard. He thinks that we don't notice these things, but in actuality I think we have more of an idea of what's going on than he does. Still, we're a famous band and overly enthusiastic fans can be found anywhere. In fact, it's almost a miracle that nobody has recognised any of us already, but then, not clothed in stage outfits and with the dimmed lights of the club it's hard to tell between similarity and authenticity of a person you don't know.

Eventually K turned towards me, and I was suddenly glad that I was not as drunk as the blond man over at the bar because had I been I probably would have blurted out something stupid about how fantastic he looked–never minding the fact that he looked like he always does, white shirt with black slacks and guns strapped to his body–which I would have to regret later. If I survived the shame and embarrassment that is. No, to stop consuming alcohol before I became completely sloshed was probably a very good idea.

"Hey K," I grinned, "Hee, that rhymes..." Alright. I might have been pretty drunk. But I wasn't going to admit that.

"Hello Hiro..." he said, testingly, "that alliterates."

Allalilo-what? It was something used in literature, but my thoughts were slipping away from the subject, and I couldn't even remember what he'd said. Alright. I was very drunk. Still wasn't going to admit to it.

"M'drunk, don't say stuffliketha'." Apparently, my mouth wasn't working right. Trying to avoid the whole 'Oh Dear, the band member is drunk' thing he'd done with Suguru, my mouth blumbered on without any indication from my brain that it was alright to do so. "Whacha think? Shuichi said I shou' wear this. Gone barmy that one. Too much sex if you as' me." Of course, I instantly regretted that as his gaze swept slowly over my torn jeans and tight top, lingering at my bared stomach. And how did Shuichi's sex life slip into this? The lock of hair was in my face again and I blew at it, making it obstruct my vision even more when it fell down again.

K seemed to have swallowed his tongue, because he wasn't saying anything, my own tongue on the other hand was working overtime. Maybe I could get it pierced within the next ten seconds to avoid disaster because I could feel some words in the back of my throat just aching to get out, and just as my mouth opened and they were about to tumble out Sakano appeared like a stressed-out angel in a rumpled suit and with a drinks menu in his hand, distracting K. I've never had a word guardian angel with a rumpled suit and a drinks menu before.

G.G.G.

One last drink, just one, if nothing else it could numb my tongue enough not to misbehave.

"Third, Fourth and Fifth off the list. Hiro what are you having?"

But why, oh why did K have to follow me to the bar?

"I can get it myself" I tried to say without a petulant tint to my voice. I'm not entirely sure I succeeded, but K shrugged, payed, downed a shot of something blue and walked off with the remaining two glasses.

"Do you have a thing for blonds or do they have a thing for you?"

"What?" I asked the cute barman, confused. He rolled his eyes but leaned closer to me over the counter.

"Every time you've been at the bar you've had blond-haired company. I was wondering if you'd let a dark haired guy have a chance." He tilted his head slightly to the side, the twist of his lips turning a little wicked in the good sexy way. It took a few moments for the words to register and when they did I felt my face flush instantly. He was hitting on me. He also thought I was some kind of a slut for blond men. My head cleared a little with the realisation, and my mouth seemed to decide that it was better if my brain got back the totalitarian rule again.

"I err, the first guy was my best friend's boyfriend, and the second guy was drunk and drooling and I don't know him, and the last guy–" _is the object of my flaming passion_ "– is a working colleague."

He smiled at me. "And what about the other question? Do I have a chance?" My stomach fluttered. It wasn't K, but he was good looking and obviousuly flirting with me, why he was doing it though was beyond me. He didn't seem to recognise me, I'm usually good at telling when people recognise me. Their eyes go wide for a moment and then their entire expression changes. Pretty bar boy had looked at me the same way all the time I'd talked to him, and now that I knew what that look meant I couldn't but wonder if he was desperate and scraping the dregs of the barrel.

"Depends on how good of a kisser you are." My mouth had made itself almighty again and now Mr Cute Bar Guy was looking at me with a mischievous glint in his eye. He was leaning forward, and my mind picked up on what my mouth was aware of right before our noses bumped together. "Wait!" I said, temporarily gaining control over my wild-life-living lips. He paused, brown eyes close to mine. "I was just wondering–"

"My name? Yoshi."

"No, I... why me?"

He pulled back a little, giving me a funny half-smile half-smirk. "Because you're the hottest thing in the house. And you're utterly self conscious and unaware which makes you adorable." He smiled. "That good enough a reason?"

I nodded dumbly, and a moment later his lips were on mine. It was warm and unexpected, I hadn't been kissed in months and suddenly smooth full lips pressed against mine, a warm tongue licking quickly over the corner of my mouth, and my mouth opened at the gentle coaxing, letting the tongue swirl around my own slowly. It felt nice. But it wasn't K, something which ran through my mind repeatedly, but the same distance I'd had to my conscious mind earlier during the day came over me, and I relaxed into it, letting the fuzziness take over, giving my strained nerves a break.

Suddenly the mouth opposite mine was pulled away and somebody behind the bar shouted, "No making out on the job Yoshi!" Yoshi grinned and slapped the man's hands away from his shoulders.

"Do you want one of my specials? You left so much change before so I can pretend it's on the house."

I smiled, biting my lip. "That would be nice."

G.G.G.

Dancing has never really been my thing I think. I feel alien on the dancefloor, but once I realise that the majority of dancers are equally inexperienced I usually loosen up and go wild. That is quite hard to do however when your heavily drunk manager is all but clinging to you, his hot breath warming your collarbones, his hands feeling like hot irons on your already sweating body. It's even harder when he stumbles on something, loses the little balance he had and makes you both topple over, his face ending up meshed into your nose and his lips sliding sloppily over yours. It's wet and awkward and his breath fans over your face like a cloud of alcohol. Still, your heart stops beating for a second, and when he giggles drunkenly and says "Oops! Accident!" far too loudly into your ear you get off the floor, dump him with your best friend and said best friend's boyfriend and leave.

G.G.G.

Just as I was about to walk out the door somebody caught my arm, and I turned around to see Yoshi placing a slip of paper into my hand. I smiled at him.

"I never got your name."

I licked my lips and leaned into him so I wouldn't have to yell.

"It's Hiroshi."

His eyes went wide, but I left before I saw his expression change.

G.G.G.

Erm... that was 3600 words in one go... you might have to wait for the next update. The way Hiro thinks is the way I think when I'm... inebriated, so, if you thought the jumbled thoughts mixed with clearer thoughts was strange, well... I never claimed I was normal. :P


	8. Nineteen

Summary: The morning after in Hiro's POV.

G.G.G.

Hiro gave a pained moan at the unendurable loud sound from the alarm clock. His head was throbbing, warm and dull, prickling at the edges of his mind as if to tell him that something worse was waiting on the horizon of only he could remember it. Covering his head with his pillow didn't help much for the penetrating sound, and eventually he cracked a bleary eye open and rose from the warm covers, goose-bumps rising on his skin. His vision swayed as he stood up on shaky knees, and his head became both light and heavy at once as he balanced himself against the wall with his hand. Resisting the temptation to smash the alarm clock into the wall he flipped the switch on the top and the room became silent once more. He shivered and staggered over to the bathroom door, pressing against a pain over his right eye with the heel of his palm.

Memories of the previous night were slowly making their way into his mind, and he tried to fend them off for as long as it took to get his needs done in the small bathroom. Feeling a little less pressured he sank into a slouch sitting on the toilet lid, tasting the bitter edge of alcohol and bile in his mouth. He scratched his head and winced at the mellow pounding in his temples. _Hangovers are highly annoying things_, he concluded and closed his eyes against the blaring electric light in the ceiling.

Hiroshi Nakano, nineteen years old going on twenty, sitting dizzy-headed in the crammed toilet of his trailer after a night of partying, only a skateboard keeping him company. Somehow that didn't fit at all with Hiro's visions of himself and his life. He'd had a decent time the previous night he presumed, but there were too many elements of insecurity and the usual slow pining for it to have been a genuinely good time. One event stood out more clearly than the others. K had kissed him. K had kissed Hiro. Lips sliding against lips in the semi-darkness of the dance-floor, soft and quick. K had kissed him. By accident.

Hiro banged his head against the wall, but instantly regretted it as his head exploded with a pounding headache, and he groaned and cradled his head in his hands as he curled his legs up against his chest, back leaning against the wall. K's grinning face as he brushed the incident off came to his mind, and he recalled the smell of K's warm alcohol breath and the sloppiness of the kiss. It had really been an accident, and it had ruined something for Hiro that he hadn't even contemplated. It had ruined his fantasy of K. It had vanquished the idea of a tender first kiss, of a meeting of souls and not just lips, a promise and a bond.

He felt tainted and robbed, not wanting to remember what had happened, wishing the alcohol had swiped the memory from him—but ironically it lay there bubbling beneath the surface of his mind no matter how he tried to dispel it. He knew he couldn't win K. That much had been clear from the very moment he realised he was smitten with the man. But he had always had his fantasy, this irrational hope that maybe, maybe...

Was this all love did to you? Left you lost and alone in the toilet feeling like your head was made of cotton and your mouth tasting like a drowned rat? Probably not, but Hiro felt up to blaming everything on love that very moment. Even that stupid feeling he'd had in the pit of his stomach when he got hit on by the bar tender.

Yoshi had been really nice, and maybe it had been a bit mean of Hiro to just whisper his name to the man and then leave before he had a chance to react, but he had been in a vile mood when he left the club and had not been willing to see anything but greed and malice in any approach towards his person in that very moment. It was unfair, he knew, and maybe he _should_ call Yoshi just to apologise—the note Yoshi'd given him still lay crumbled in the pocket of Hiro's jeans—even though he'd probably never meet him again.

Hiro reached for the mug standing on the sink, and slowly filled it with water from the tap. He didn't check the temperature of the water and was a bit startled by the cold and the minty taste of residual toothpaste that filled his mouth, washing away the stale alcohol from his senses a little.

No, as it was Hiroshi was not at all pleased with his life at the moment. However, he would wait until he had talked to Shuichi before he decided to give up on the world completely.

G.G.G.


	9. Pigtails

Summary: The morning after in K's POV.  
Warnings: Vomiting and Cursing.

G.G.G.

When K came to—came to, because there was no way one could call that waking up—the sun was glaring at him. Rays of clear brilliant light slicing in through the blinds in the windows prickled his eyes and alerted him to the sunny day in progress outside. His head was spinning, his stomach didn't seem to be enjoying itself, and the light was able to blind him even when his eyes were closed.

Stupid day. Stupid light. Stupid drinks. Stupid stomach. Stupid light. Stupid musicians who made people need to get completely drunk. Stupid stomach. Stupid head. Stupid light. K's ears were ringing, and he imagined that he was hearing bird twittering over the mellow tone, but this did nothing to help his mood. What right did the world have to be happy when he felt like shit?

Stupid day. It seemed to be a particularly happy one with a clear sky, happy chatter and ice-cream cones in the park. Lickity lickable ice-cream... with sprinkles. His stomach first growled, and then he felt like he was going to vomit. K groaned and flopped over to his stomach, landing in a spectacular painful heap on the floor as he toppled over the edge of the bed.

The birds twittered outside and the sun burned as he tried to open his eyes to orient himself. Right. Those birds were having it as soon as he could find his gun. The automatic weapons he'd need to kill the sun would have to wait a bit—not to mention the fact that blasting a bomb into a cloud of fire was probably not going to help anything, but it never hurt to try.

He got up on his hands and knees before his stomach made a hurling lurch, and he had to keep it down until he managed to crawl over to the bathroom and hold his head over the toilet bowl. The queasiness rose in him and he hurled, the bitter acidic taste filling his mouth. He moaned and leaned his cheek against the hand that was clutching to the seat and winced. That was when he noticed the odd way his hair was falling.

It fell over his shoulders and to the front instead of over the back of his neck. Testing, he felt over the sides of his head, fingers not meeting the sleek hair of a brushed ponytail on the back of his head, but the tousled haphazard pigtails which were protruding from just above his ears.

K moaned and slumped against the toilet, hands clasping around the seat. That was when he noticed the red splotch of colour on his right hand. It looked mysteriously like... He brought his hand up to his lips and rubbed against them for a moment before looking at his fingers. They came off red. Good heavens no. They had given him a makeover. Why in the world the stupid asses had given him a makeover was something he would have to process later, preferably after he had blasted their heads off. Maybe he could get Reiji to do it, at the moment he was feeling to ill to do much of anything more than leaning against the toilet, waiting to retch. However, the revelation brought another issue to his mind. What else had happened last night? He couldn't remember much after he'd had his umpteenth drink and Sakano had tried to make the people around him wear the paper umbrellas as hats.

K's hand rose to his hair again, and after some fiddling he withdrew a blue crumpled umbrella from his hair that he tossed on the floor. He moaned as he felt the bile rise again, simmering with the headache swirling right behind his eyes. This was not his day. _If Judy saw me now..._ he thought grimly as he slipped into an uneasy doze over the toilet bowl. The smell made him feel queasy again, and it was with a tired arm that he was able to flush, trying not to imagine the contents splashing up in his face. This was definitely not his day.

G.G.G.


	10. Late For Work

Summary: K is late for work and Hiro goes to find him.

G.G.G.

It was a good while before I felt composed enough to uncurl from my position on the toilet to brush my teeth and then make my way out of the bathroom again, kicking back some fallen shampoo bottles into the small space as I closed the door.

Pulling on my usual attire of jeans and a t-shirt, I put on some deodorant and was good to go. I felt a little disgusting from the night before so I didn't get clean clothes, and I accidentally got into the tattered old jeans I had managed to wiggle my way out of before I crashed into bed. Too tired to care I tugged down the large t-shirt over my posterior and went out into the sunshine and bird-twittering outside.

Walking slowly, trying to shield my eyes with my hands from the piercing sun while trying not to let the ache soaking through my head take hold again I went to the canteen tent where we met before practicing every morning. Sifting through a small set-up shrubbery (muttering grimly about the idiots who would set up a shrubbery in the middle of a congregation of trailers) I arrived at the tent with the long wooden tables and saw Shuichi and Suguru sitting at a table, the former munching happily on a bowl of cereal and smacking his lips.

"Hey guys. " I said weakly and was met with a cheery sound coming from Shuichi that I presumed meant 'Hi Hiro', and a glare from Suguru. I sat down next to the glaring boy and gave him a sympathetic smile. "Headache?" I asked.

"Tell me about it." He muttered, gaze losing it's sharpness to fall into a mellow tiredness.

"So, where are the others?" I looked over at Shuichi, and he managed to swallow this time before starting to chatter on, Suguru covering his ears and groaning softly into the table.

"Well, Yuki was here before, but he was just being a sourpuss and went back to bed without eating anything, and I keep telling him it's no wonder he's so grumpy in the mornings when he only drinks coffee, but then he always says he needs—"

"And K?" I cut his ramble off.

"Haven't seen him." He shrugged and returned to his cereal, looking at it pensively for a second before dumping some more sugar on it. No wonder he's hyperactive in the mornings.

"What happened after I left last night?" I asked, not because I had any real interest but because it might spread some light over the situation of the missing manager. I cast a glance at the watch on Suguru's arm, which read 11 am. I was two hours late, and there hadn't been anybody barging into my trailer waving firearms and threatening with immediate castration if failure to comply to orders ensued.

"I'm not on the clear with everything..." Shuichi said slowly, reaching for the sugar bowl once more. I placed my hand over the bowl, shaking my head at him, and he pouted at me before he continued. "He didn't have anything more to drink, but he was pretty far gone already I think, and some girls Sakano met put make-up on him when he passed out against the table... but he looked really happy though."

"Figures." I muttered and rose from the table. "I'm going to go check up on him, alright?" Shuichi nodded and shot a sneaky glance towards the now free for the taking bowl of sugar. "And no more sugar. You'll just get bumbly and giggly, and then you'll be really tired in the afternoon." I said sternly, and he nodded morosely as I stepped out of the tent and towards K's trailer. I heard the clink of the sugar spoon as I turned the corner.

G.G.G.

I knocked on K's door, but there was no answer. I felt the door handle, and the door opened with a sucking sound of the rubber bands rubbing together. Trying my luck I decided to peek inside.

"K?" I opened the door wider and stepped inside, looking at the empty bed and disheveled appearence of the place in general. Knowing K he hadn't made this mess all by himself. I guessed it was rather a combination of being thoroughly smashed and having inebriated friends bring you home and Shuichi being one of those inebriated friends. "K?"

There was a rumbling sound coming from the bathroom, and I went closer until I saw a sock-clad foot peeking out through the lavatory door. I crept up to it and slowly pushed the door open. K was sitting with his head bent over the toiletseat, looking decidedly worse for wear. His shirt was crumpled from sleep, unbuttoned and hanging limply from his shoulders, his hair was a mess, fastened in two tangled pigtails, he had blue shadows beneath his eyes and his lips wore a smeared red colour that I knew was the residue of lipstick.

"K?" I asked, stepping carefully over the limp limbs spread haphazardly over the floor, "K, come on, wake up."

He moaned and cracked an eye open, tilting his head over the toilet again as though he was going to retch, but nothing came up. "'Mwake," He mumbled, "Bloo hangvr."

I sighed. He was still pretty out of it. I studied his face a little more, noticing that his eyes had been coated with blue eye-shadow, but thankfully no mascara. I don't get how women stand the stuff. Either it runs all over your face non stop or it won't come off, period. I snatched a paper handkerchief from a box on the sink, wet it with water and bent down next to K.

"I'm going to clean your face up." I said in a low voice before starting to rub off the eyeshadow and lipstick. He still looked a bit pink around the lips afterward, but at least the worst was gone. I reached for his hairbrush and proceeded to un-knot the tangled pigtails, removing the ribbons and brushing what I could reach with his face turned away from me. "Can you turn over?" I asked, and it was with sluggish movements that he switched to lean against the wall by his side instead of the toilet seat. He looked at me blearily as I moved over and started to untangle the knots in this bangs, trying not to look at the bared expanse of smooth-skinned torso in front of me.

It made me feel strangely protective to see him like this, I wanted to take care of him—and let's face it, inebriated was probably the only state in which he would let anybody take care of him—and I soaked it up, reveling in the way his hair was smooth and sleek beneath my fingers, and how warm his presence was next to mine. I tucked a strand of hair behind his ear, and caught his gaze.

"Would you like some water?"

He nodded, and I turned to the sink again, filling his mug with water and bringing it to his hands.

"Mint-tasting toothbrush water. The one true hangover drink." I smirked and he smiled back, gulping down a few mouths of water before setting the cup down on the floor.

"I'm sorry you had to see me like this." His voice was raspy and worn, but at least he was coherent now.

"It doesn't matter." I muttered, but he clasped my hand, and it felt like my skin was burning where he touched it.

"It does matter. Hiro, thank you." He looked into my eyes as he said it, and a tingle ran through my stomach. A smidgeon of shame spread through me at the thought of how I had treated him just a couple of hours before, when he was drunk and unknowing of his actions. Suddenly the existence of that one quick sloppy kiss seemed much more pressing, and I felt my cheeks heat up a little. I smiled slightly.

"You're welcome." It was only a whisper, but he nodded and let go of my hand. Part of me ached at the loss of that little brief touch, but the rational part of me smiled and picked up the water cup again.

"Come on, I hear dehydration is devastating for gun control. And we simply can't have that. Shuichi's been glutting over the sugar bowl."

K smiled. "I'll be there in a minute." I nodded and left, slipping out of the trailer into the sunshine and chirping of birds.

G.G.G.


	11. Fade

Summary: The band is watching the sunset down on the beach, and K ponders Hiro.

G.G.G.

There were only three days left of the Japan tour when we set up camp near the East coast north of Tokyo, in the vicinity of Mito. The last concert was going to be in Tokyo, and after the gig in Mito Ekihu and the crew had been sent ahead to prepare. After the last concert I was going to America to check that everything was in order before the band would arrive a few days later.

Everything was planned and rolling, the future weeks pinned out with what felt like minute precision, and I would have been apprehensive to the schedule had I not made sure myself that the guys would have several nights off during the US tour. It was going to be a very fragile situation as it was without over-stressing the boys. Shuichi would once again have to go through Yuki-withdrawal since he was not viable to leave the country until after he'd finished his new book, Suguru would be having problems with the food (he's a very picky boy that one, I would have to arrange for lots of orange sherbet being acquired), and Hiro he, well... As usual, the question of Hiro befuddled me.

We were down on the beach, walking around barefoot as the waves swept in over the sand, hugging the remnants of fallen sandcastles and reflecting the light of the setting sun in glistening splays of colour on the rippling water. The sky was a brilliant canvas of pink, purple and peach, lit by the glowing circle of the fading sun, small clouds dotting the sky like little islands in an endless ocean of pastels.

I was walking next to Suguru and Sakano, Hiro a pace or two behind us, Yuki and Shuichi several meters ahead of us, holding hands on Shuichi's persistent initiative. All was silent with the exception of the seagulls gliding through the sky on shadowed wings, their cries adding an edge to the fresh air and ocean wind.

Eventually we sat down in the shelter between two sand dunes, our shadows lengthening and stretching lazily towards the water. It was peaceful to sit there, not needing to be aware of anything other than the weakening rays of sunlight as the golden orb sank to hover at the horizon, illuminating the roofs of a row of beach-houses who's shadows didn't reach us where we sat in the sand.

It's really a rather odd group, me included. I would go as far as to say that I'm among the more eccentric, but then we all have our quirks. The only person here who is a mystery to me is Hiro. Somehow he always seems to be able to slip from every situation and conversation without leaving himself out in the clear. I have watched him—watched them all, it's not excusable to not know your subjects when you are their manager—but he's never the same from one moment to the other. He is intelligent and talented with an ear for perfect pitch, with a gentle and caring nature, and he is an absolute enigma.

When it comes to Hiro I don't know what to do to inspire him and make him want to succeed. But then, I have never had to either. He has always been there, working hard and trying to make everybody else enthusiastic as well. If nothing else I would like to reward him for being such a great source of strength for the band, but I am at a complete loss. I know that he is in love, he has told me as much, but also that he is not in a relationship and that his feelings most probably are unrequited. It saddens me that he has had to go through a break-up with Ayaka without anything to fall back on. I know that his relationship with his parents isn't what it used to be after he gave up on the medical career, and that his brother is a little too absent-minded to be of much help with the more trying problems in life.

Hiro seems rootless, and yet he supports the entire group of people that surrounds him. He constantly tries to make Shuichi happy when Yuki is not around, he soothes Suguru when working with such procrastinators gets too straining, he tries to make the song-writing a quicker ordeal (though, this particular activity is very hard to speed up) to alleviate Sakano and prevent his rather momentous panic-attacks, and me... well, last time he had showed me his kindness he was fixing me up when I was hung-over and slumped over the toilet-seat in my trailer bathroom.

I feel ashamed that he had seen me at my absolute worst like that, but in one way I am grateful because I once again got to see the gentle side of him aimed at me, always trying, always encouraging you to make more of the moment than you thought it could be.

Then there is the fact that I am attracted to him. Deep down, denied by the more reasonable part of me, I am attracted to this young man with his easy humour and comfortable air. Yet, this is a desire that remains better repressed and stored away on the dusty shelves of my mind to not be searched through often enough that it takes on much significance. I have a family, and it is highly unsuitable to give in to something which will not only lead nowhere but might ruin something valuable in my life.

Still, he does flirt with me. Subtle though it might be, and maybe it has just become second nature for him to do so with the image he has to uphold to the fans, he does have a lot of charm, even in the studio. If anything he does not strike me as shy.

Then again, how can I be sure of anything?

I looked around, noticing that while I was sitting in my own thoughts the sun had slipped beneath the horizon, and the sky was darkening rapidly, the day fading into night as the darkness settled around us in a heavy silent blanket. We started to walk back to the camp, the grainy sand now cold beneath our feet and the seagulls quiet in the young night. The day turned its face away, leaving many questions in its wake.

G.G.G.


	12. Armageddon

Summary: K and Hiro are relaxing beneath a tree while global warming does a trick on Shuichi.

G.G.G.

It had perhaps not been the best of ideas to tell Shuichi about the global warming, but that was what Yuki had done. Then he had set the now newly-knowledgeable best friend of mine free among the crew that was finalizing the preparation for the coming night's concert, the last one in Japan this time around. Shuichi had taken Yuki's words to heart as always, but he seemed to be of the conviction that the global warming was going to sneak up and attack at any moment rather than occur progressively. He was hence effectively interrupting the busily working people by asking them what they would regret not having done if the world ended that very minute.

I was happy to be back in Tokyo—It had been great to sleep in my own bed for the first time in weeks, and I was feeling very relaxed and comfortable where I was sitting in the shadow beneath a wide-crowned tree, leaning back against the trunk. K was lying on the ground, feet propped up against the tree, right beside my shoulder, his face lying right outside the shadow, his sun-glasses shining slightly in the bright sunlight.

The grass seemed to be glittering in the sun, a pure light green, while in the shade it looked almost close to a dark blue and tickled the backsides of my knees. K's body was lying stretched out very close to me, I could feel his heat through the fabric of his shirt where he touched my leg. I was silently savouring the touch, enjoying the smell of flowers in the air and the light breeze gracing my cheeks and arms.

Shuichi had just skipped up to another sweaty crew member and was loudly asking the question of what they would regret if the world ended. The girl scrunched her nose and twirled her ponytail between her fingers, but after a long moment's pause she said that she didn't know, and asked Shuichi himself what he'd regret.

At which point Shuichi dug into the back pocket of his shorts and produced a long bit of paper and started reading off it. He had made _a list_. The girl was looking rather exasperated and was glancing around as if looking for a distraction, but sadly enough nobody wanted to interrupt now that Shuichi had singled one person out and started on his rant. It would keep him occupied for a few minutes at least, and the rest of the crew was hurrying back and forward to finish their chores so that they could leave.

The girl had by now settled on a blank expression while Shuichi droned on, explaining every point on his list intricately. He was on the point about inventing socks which had air-freshener sown into the fabric, which was number three on the list, and seemed very far from getting to point number four which was telling people to use a tissue when opening the doors to public toilets.

I nudged K's shoulder with the toe of my shoe, and he raised his sunglasses a little to squint at me.

"What?" He looked a bit ruffled and sleepy, and his face was pinched against the sunlight leaking into his eyes.

I smirked. "What would you regret not having done if the world ended today?" I said in an imitation of Shuichi's excited tone and nudged him again.

Suddenly my mind filled with the image of K sitting up, leaning towards me, his hand turning my face towards his as he whispered "Never having kissed you..."—

"Not having spent more time with Michael. Not hugging him more."

I closed my eyes, the image dispelled. Of course. _Of course_. Of course, Hiro, of course. Don't be stupid.

"And you?" He had put his glasses back on and was relaxing in the sun again, and I slipped lower against the tree, the bark flaky and coarse through my t-shirt.

Of course.

I smiled slightly, plucking at the grass next to me.

When I spoke my voice was low, barely more than a whisper. "Nothing." I said.

G.G.G.


	13. Goodbye

Summary: Ryuichi visits and everything goes pear-shaped.

G.G.G.

The conclusion of the Japan tour was a smash hit, sold out and went without any technical issues. There was only one attempt made to pull Shuichi off stage, and he managed to weasel his way out of that one in the last second by doing a twist and flip movement which made him fall flat on his face but got him away from the eager fans. After the show his nose had bled, but Yuki had not budged in his conviction to brush off Shuichi's attempts at a cuddle until his nose 'learned to behave'.

Ryuichi had come over for a surprise visit and managed to sneak onto the stage to sing a duet with Shuichi, but after the song he didn't want to get off the stage and had to be chased by the security guards. However, this only managed in making a racket as they ran after him both backstage and out over the stage where the crowd cheered him on. Eventually K had told them to leave him be, and he had spent the rest of the concert (which wasn't very long) mocking about on the stage with Shuichi.

K was going to leave for America right after the concert on a jet along with an artist going home from an Asian visit. Tohma had started to interact with XMR, and had decided that he could kill two birds with one stone by having K on the plane as safety-personnel. He had stood beside the stage, checking off points on the list of things he needed to have done before leaving, one eye on the spectacle on display for the thousand people in the audience.

He had looked up when he heard Hiro and Suguru's voices loudly singing the 'Itsy Bitsy Spider' lyrics in tune to Spicy Marmalade. They were grinning at each other, but K was sure that they couldn't be heard over Shuichi's voice that was blaring out of the gigantic speakers on either side of the stage. He smiled and shook his head at them, his gaze lingering on Hiro's genuine happy smile and twinkling eyes. He was going to miss them. Miss _this_.

He returned to checking off his list and reminded himself that it was only for a few days. It shouldn't be affecting him this much.

K was just about to say goodbye to the band and crew when a panting and exhilarated-looking Ryuichi approached him and asked him for a private chat. Complying, K wondered what new devious ideas were skipping around in Ryuichi's head as he entered one of the storerooms not far from the stage.

Afterward K was not entirely sure how the events had progressed, but he could distinctly remember the sparkle in Ryuichi's eyes as he said "Oh, come on K, for old time's sake", Ryuichi's lips pressed against his own, and Hiro's stricken expression as the door opened and he saw them.

K went cold inside, and was pushing Ryuichi away as Hiro scrunched his nose and murmured "I'm sorry" before turning in a flurry of red and blue and vanishing from view. K turned to Ryuichi with a frown, he hadn't responded to the short kiss, and Ryuichi was looking petulantly back at him, arms crossed over his chest.

"I have to go." He said and quickly escaped from the room and Ryuichi's glare.

When K came back to the others Hiro was walking away towards the dressing rooms, but as he turned to follow him he felt a heavy hand on his arm.

"Mr K," said a calm voice, "you should get ready for your flight."

K looked into Ekihu's dark pleasant face and sighed. Then he nodded, biting his lip, casting a last glance in the direction Hiro had disappeared, and turned for the exit.

G.G.G.


	14. Fix You

Summary: Hiro goes to Yuji for comfort.  
Note: The theme is the song _Fix You_ by Coldplay, but as I am not allowed to quote song lyrics here you'll have to look it up for yourselves ;)

G.G.G.

Hiro opened the door to his brother's apartment and slipped inside, shutting it with a click as he slid down to the floor and curled up with his face buried in his knees. Yuji was probably asleep, and Hiro had let himself in with the spare key that he'd been given when Yuji moved in here. "In case of an emergency" he'd said. Well, to Hiro this was definitely an emergency.

He had known he had absolutely no shot at K, and he hadn't been going to even attempt anything—he had too much respect for the matrimonial and familial bonds to do something like that—but seeing K kissing Ryuichi like that... Something had broken within him, and he didn't know if he was going to be able to patch it back up again.

The bastard. The complete and utter bastard. No qualms at all about being married, kissing people right to left—

Lips sliding wetly against Hiro's, blue eyes sparkling as K grinned, lit by the colour-changing light of the dancefloor—

Hiro shuddered as an acidic wave jolted through his stomach. His throat was closing up, and he started to rock back and forward, hugging his stomach. He was starting to feel ill, and he had a hard time breathing through his nose, opting instead for deep shuddering breaths through his mouth. He knew he was making noise but at the moment he didn't care. He felt like his heart had been ripped out of his chest and then thrust back the wrong way, like what he felt was wrong and foul and empty, and yet he was full to the brim with this complete _agony_, and he couldn't think, couldn't talk couldn't breathe—

"Hiro?" Yuji was standing in his bedroom doorway in boxers and a t-shirt, rubbing his eyes sleepily and squinting at Hiro. "Hiro, what's wrong?" He padded over to Hiro and crouched down in front of him, tilting Hiro's head up and wiping something off his cheeks. "Come on Hiro, breathe properly." His voice was starting to get an urgent note to it which almost instantly turned hard and commanding. "Hiro, sit up."

Hiro felt unable to do anything, too far gone into his own world where he was repeating 'no, no, no, no, no, no,' over and over again, wishing against his own senses that he had seen wrong, that it was a lie, that his hope shouldn't die.

"HIRO." Hiro was thrust back against the wall, and on the impact the dam broke, he gasped and took a deep breath, air filled his lungs to the point of pain, and tears started to stream from his eyes. "Hiro what's happened?" Yuji's hand cupped Hiro's cheek, and turned his head so that they came eye to eye, but Yuji's sincere face was blurred through Hiro's tears.

"Hiro?"

"I-I..." The words felt raw, painful as they squeezed their way past the lump in his throat. "He just-" His stomach made a lurch and he clamped down on his nausea. "I feel sick." His stomach started to heave, and he lurched forward.

Yuji got to his feet quickly and pulled Hiro up, holding him around the torso as he led him into the bathroom and placed him gently in front of the toilet, pulling away the red hair as Hiro leaned over the bowl and retched.

Not much came out, but he dry-heaved for several minutes, tears still running down his face in now unperceivable tracks. Yuji sighed.

"I understand if you don't want to talk about it right now. But you will have to eventually."

Hiro just stared down into the toilet, his expression blank, cheeks shining in the bright lamp light.

"Hiro?"

Hiro drew a shuddering breath. "I never thought it would hurt this bad. I never thought I depended on hope so much. And now it's gone." His voice was a broken whisper, and when Yuji gathered him into his arms Hiro fell bonelessly into the embrace, wetting his brother's t-shirt with more tears.

"Shhh, Hiro, it'll be okay," Yuji cooed, "We'll fix it. We'll fix you."

"Yeah," Hiro whispered, but inside he knew that there was in fact nothing that could mend his broken heart.

G.G.G.


	15. Snow Globe

Summary: Hiro has a pensive moment, after which he and Suguru have a chat at N-G.  
Warnings: Insinuation of nekkid boys.

G.G.G.

The lines always blur for me eventually. I feel things very distinctly, I separate the elements of a problem and piece out the answer like pieces of a puzzle. Yet, after a while it always becomes dim and illusive and I can't separate what I felt in the past to understand my reasoning. It might be seen as strange to base my emotional life on a problem solving model that would suit my academic prowess better, but that's the way I understand myself.

There are a few basic things I know about myself: I can't stand cabbage, I sing in the shower, I always eat the edges of my sandwiches first, I have far too much faith in people I reasonably should know are bad at getting things done, I can be poetic—but only when I wash the dishes, and I can take care of children fairly decently.

I have never before been in love.

At least, that is what I think. Memories always pale in contrast to what you are feeling at the moment, just like how other people's pain is never comparative to your own. I'd like to believe that the anguish doesn't get worse every time I feel it, because then I'd feel progressively worse every time I felt down, but on the other hand I can't imagine ever feeling as lost and torn as I do now.

I have had crushes. I have shared hesitant embarrassing close-mouthed kisses with girls behind the janitor's shed, I have held hands with grinning girls in the hallways, I've held somebody's warm body close to my own, I have pressed my nose into newly washed hair and smelled the scent of flowers and fruits, I have been with girls. But I don't believe that I have been in love with them.

Does the fact that the only person I've felt this strongly about is a man make me homosexual? No. I don't believe that. I felt real attraction to Ayaka, and I loved her in a way that I do not entirely understand, but she wasn't what I needed. What I still need.

Do all feelings become bleak and unrecognisable? Have I felt as strongly about all those girls as I did with Ayaka? Am I wrong to compare? Was the jitters in my stomach just nerves I felt for the situation, or was there an actual heartfelt feeling involved?

The only love life I have seen develop in front of my eyes is that of Shuichi and Yuki. I wish it could have been like that for me. To meet somebody and just _know_. It took time for me to realise my feelings, and by then I had already hidden them in my soul. I don't believe that they are invisible however, I believe that I do carry my heart on my sleeve but nobody has ever had the reason to look close enough.

That is the validation of my loneliness. To hold this great and sometimes horrifying love inside me and nobody seeing it for what it is. This terrible all-encompassing love that makes me feel like I am about to burst with it, so vast and so pure that sometimes I think it might choke me, so exhilarating and so utterly devastating.

My life is a life lived on hope.

Pointless planless hope that digs my grave deeper every moment I spend in his presence, every glance he sends my way makes me full of butterflies, makes me want to fling myself into the emotion, let it drown me, let oblivion soak through me and liberate me from the weight of it all.

But I have too much reason. Always reason.

It is curious how I could have become so blinded when deep down I knew it was impossible. It's as if I had closed myself off to the harsh reality of the situation in order to protect my trembling heart. I know that it was foolish and naïve of me, but then we all have our weaknesses. Mine just happened to be my inability to face facts. K is out of reach, not merely because he is married, but because he does not feel anything for me. It is this disregard that I am most flummoxed by. How can I not have thought about this before? He is tied down, yes, but even if he broke free he still would not want me. He wants Ryuichi.

He does not want me.

He doesn't want me with my stupid jokes and idiotic behaviour and my pining for him. He doesn't want the blossoming love I hold for him, he doesn't want to hold me, touch me, he doesn't want to see me smile in the mornings, he doesn't want to lie close to me beneath thin sheets, skin on skin, breath as one, NO—

He. Does. Not. Want. Me.

What I feel is unrequited. My emotions are all in vain.

G.G.G.

I was broken from my reverie by the door clicking shut. I was sitting in the window seat in one of the lounging rooms on the higher floors in the N-G building the day after my complete breakdown at Yuji's place. As I heard the sound I turned my face away from the sun shining on me through the window to see Suguru walking leisurely towards where I was curled up and leaning against the glass. I smiled weakly at him and closed my eyes again, letting the sun warm my face and paint the insides of my eyelids in a light red.

"Hey Hiro." He said, sitting down at the other end of the window, blocking the sun a little, his shadow sliding over my knees.

I cracked my eyes open a little bit. "Hey." I answered. The sun high-lighted the tips of his hair, and it looked a little bit like a green halo around his kind expression. A bit like a forest nymph, I imagined.

"Sakano gave me this to show you and Shuichi." He held up a rounded object that he then placed in my hands with a scrunched nose. I lifted it up closer to my face. It was a snow globe with tiny figures of Bad Luck inside, all in Santa Clause suits, Shuichi's and my suits clashing horribly with our hair. Suguru looked a little bit like a Christmas tree.

"Why—" I asked, perplexed.

"It's for the American fans." Suguru said helpfully. "If the tour is a smash hit in the US then they want to sell this promo stuff in the winter."

I looked at the atrocity again, noticing the text in the background. It said 'Bad Luck: Techno Christmas!'

"It's horrifying." I stated blankly and glanced up to see Suguru trying to stifle a grin.

"Oh, you haven't experienced the best part yet." He said with a low teasing tone, and reached for the back of the snow globe to wind it up. When he let go it started playing a medley of songs from our second album in that twinkling kind of sound that melody boxes have while a blue lamp lit up the globe from beneath.

I could only stare at it in horror. "You're not serious."

"You wish."

"They can't be serious." My eyes were starting to grow the size of saucers.

"I wish."

"_Seguchi_ can't be serious."

"We all wish." Suguru's face was blank except for a slight twitch in the corner of his mouth. "I don't think Tohma's seen it yet. He probably just asked for a prototype to be made. But if he's too busy to look at it he's going to let Sakano decide, and then we'll be in real trouble."

I reached out and grabbed a hold of his arm, staring seriously into his face. The snow globe fell to the window ledge with a clatter, the sound coming from it stopping. "Suguru. We simply _can't_ let that happen."

He grinned and petted my hand reassuringly. "Calm down Hiro, I was going to talk to him already. I just wanted to see your reaction when I showed it to you."

I felt the air slowly go out of me as I relaxed back against the window, my hands falling to my lap.

"You should have seen your face. Priceless." He laughed softly and bumped his shoulder against mine.

"So my utter terror was for your amusement?" I smirked back at him, shaking my head and gazing out at the street below the N-G building.

"You've been acting quite out of it lately. I thought maybe it would get you to think of other things."

"It did. Thanks." I closed my eyes again and concentrated on the warmth of the sun on my face and arms. I felt a hand on my knee, its warmth soaking through the fabric of my jeans.

"Are you alright Hiro?" His voice was low and inquisitive, with an undertone of concern.

"I'm going to be," I told him encouragingly, "Don't worry."

"Ok." His hand slipped away and his soft steps were heard over the floor before the door opened again and shut with another click. The snow globe gave a clear 'ping', then the room sank into silence.

G.G.G.


	16. Cry

a/n: My computer broke down. Half this chapter disappeared. I'm not too upset, but...Gah, no computer. (Erm... I'm using the family one...not having my own computer really isn't such a big deal when I can use this one most of the time) Point? None. I don't like this chapter much though. My angst is all off.

Summary: Hiro angst. But no, I don't feel like it's angst. But you will think it is.

G.G.G.

'The days seemed almost absurdly long to Hiro. He would wake up every morning after a fitful few hours of uneasy sleep to face a day that felt like it would never end. Each moment he spent awake was filled with the ever present and repeating thoughts of what had become of his life—or what had _not_ become of it, what a miserable creature he was, and above all he thought about K.

He had never been fond of gazing at himself in the mirror, but now he could hardly stand it. He had dark circles under his eyes, eyes which always seemed to be unnaturally glossy, he didn't have the strength to eat in the mornings because he felt so worn down and detached, which only rendered him weary and slow. He was having trouble concentrating at work, his fingers almost reflexively going through the practiced melodies on the guitar while his mind wandered, perpetually repeating the same thoughts in the same pattern, always centering on K, K, _K_.

It was as though he was living in a sort of daze, like the universe had decided to turn upside down and not pull him entirely with it, but leaving him in some sort of limbo between awareness of the outer world and being engrossed in the feelings he was trying to cope with inside. It was as though a veil had been lowered over him, and if he were to remove it the world would become too bright, too vibrant, too detailed, too _rough_.

He didn't want to see it any clearer. He didn't want to feel any more than he already did, this nagging, always present searing jolt that went through him every time he thought about K, which was constantly. He kept repeating the moment when he had opened the door again and again in his mind, until the details were foggy and blended with things he had imagined, until he didn't know what had happened exactly, if he had been expecting to see them like that, if he had already _known_ or if he had really been shocked by what had met his eyes.

In the same way he twisted and turned the memory of the one wet kiss K had bestowed him on the dance-floor. It should have left his mind by now, a kiss that wasn't more than an accidental brush of lips, quick and unintended, but he couldn't let it go, not when it was the only thing that had ever come close to the false reality he had created for himself in his mind. His fantasies, his hope.

The band had many days off during the week due to the fact that they had recently come back from a long tour and would be leaving for another one shortly, and those days Hiro spent lying in bed just staring up at his ceiling for hours on end, or walking around in his underwear, chain-smoking, occasionally getting into the same tattered jeans and shirt day after day to walk the three blocks to the convenience store to get more cigarettes.

He had come back from one of these walks a week after the _incident_ as he had named it, with a plastic bag clutched in one hand, glass beer bottles clinking lightly as he put it down on the counter in his kitchen corner, when he finally realised what he was doing.

He was trying to hide.

He knew what had happened, he _understood_ what had happened, but he did not want to accept it, didn't want to face it.

It was as though he had tried to sever himself from the reality he was facing, safeguard his heart and preserve his already teetering sense of happiness. In actuality, he hadn't been truly happy for what felt like an eternity. There was a difference between feeling happy and being happy, a difference that was painfully clear to Hiro. Laughter was hollow when joy was so far out of reach.

He had created a vision for himself, an ideal fantasy that he deep down knew to be false, a lie, but he had envisioned it none the less, wanting it so badly that he had closed off his way to see it logically. It had fed his hope, his base of life, the very reason he got up in the morning. Maybe he was ungrateful, but it was the truth. His entire life which to many seemed ideal and extravagant, it was empty without this love, without his hope.

It was worthless to him, like a gold necklace stripped off its gems and melted down to coat shabby silverware.

He had to get rid of this obsession, separate himself from the delusion he had created. He wasn't a psychopath, but he felt perverted somehow, having all these wishes and dreams for a person who so clearly did not want it. It was an impossibility, and he was harming himself with wanting it, with considering it, with having fallen so hard that there was nothing to shelter him when he broke apart. He was alone in this.

His hands rested, curled into tight fists on the counter top, and he squeezed his eyes tightly shut, willing the prickling away, trying to deny himself the relief of letting the tears fall, knowing the agony they would bring with them.

In the end it was a losing battle. His legs gave out a few moments after the tears had started trailing down his cheeks, but it wasn't until he felt completely boneless in surrender to despair that the sobs started to claw their way out of him, constricting his breath even more around the soreness which had appeared in his throat.

Hiro wondered for a brief moment, with a rueful smile through the tears, if he was going insane. How did one tell?

He leaned his back against the side of the counter, the grubby t-shirt the only thing separating him from the cold surface. He felt like had been torn into pieces, like he didn't know what went where in his mind anymore. He felt so lost, now only dimly aware of the tears still running from his eyes. He leaned his head backwards, neck aching around the heavy lump in his throat, the shifting of angle sadly not helping his ragged breaths. He felt like he was sinking, tiredness and harsh emotion making him dizzy, the world spinning when he closed his eyelids. Or rather, he spun as the world stayed the same.

He had never felt so excruciatingly human.

G.G.G.


	17. Knife suicide

WARNING: This chapter contains descriptions of self harm. Persons who are not of appropriate age or are sensitive to this kind of material are encouraged NOT to read the passage in this text that is marked as containing elements of this kind.

Summary: Hiro angsts. Again, yes.  
Notes: I have never cut myself, but I have talked to former cutters.  
And my thanks to Tasha who when I asked her about cutting said "It's all about the hormones and shit." I love that girl so much.

G.G.G.

I just couldn't understand myself. I've always thought of myself as an intelligent person, but this was so far off the track that I wasn't sure about anything anymore. It was like I'd been subconsciously living in my own little world, playing house in my own mind. I felt disgusted with myself, but at the same time I wanted to hang on to my fantasy. It was my sparkle, and trying to break away from it would be to fling myself into a great void empty of everything that connected me to the person I considered myself to be.

But I knew I had to. I had to distance myself from it, break free from that part of myself before it was too late. But then, maybe it was already. It is one thing to deny a part of yourself. It's another to acknowledge it and keep it buried. It's yet another to single it out and pry yourself away from it. Especially when it's so deep-rooted that it has begun to mingle with the core of your very soul.

Everybody can change, I know, and the wounds of Love will come to heal with time. But what is time when every moment is an eternity in itself, and every day is spent in a never-changing piercing sorrow? It felt as though I was grieving. Grieving because I had lost something that was vital to my existence—my hope.

The despair grew in me, and I had no outlet. I had nobody to turn to with this—nobody I could trust with the knowledge that I love K. My parents—especially my mother—would shoot to the rafters, my brother, while very considerate and supportive, would call everybody I know and tell them everything in his attempt to get back-up for his quest of cheering me up. If I told Shuichi he would be stunned and react as usual—overwhelmingly and with a lot of noise. Suguru would lock himself in with his keyboard until he got used to the idea, Ayaka would be incredibly hurt and insulted, and if I against all logic reasoning told Yuki, then he wouldn't care. The thought of telling K? Absolutely laughable.

No, I was in this alone, and I had to cope with it. Sad to say I wasn't doing very well. I just could not keep my mind off it, and every time I thought about it it was magnified until I felt like my own voice was hollering in my head, and no matter how hard I clapped my hands over my ears, and no matter how hard I sobbed it just wouldn't go away.

HE DOESN'T WANT ME, HE DOESN'T WANT ME, HE DOESN'T WANT ME!

I couldn't get away. I was drowning in myself. I was fighting a battle against myself, a battle I just couldn't _win_.

I don't know what put the idea in my head. At some point it was just _there_, nagging me, telling me that there was something to feel besides _this_, this despair and misery that was carving a hollow in my soul.

It would be such an easy thing to do really, just take a knife out of the drawer, put it against my arm and... pull my mind away from it like a scalded cat. Had I really gone so far as to be seriously thinking about harming myself?

Yes.

Which was when my voice inside started saying that maybe, _maybe... I_ can _feel something other than_ this.

I was not in the best of mental states of mind. One night when I lay curled up on the couch, feeling gritty and disgusting it somehow seemed like a good idea. I was almost in a daze as I got up and padded over to the kitchen, switching on the spotlights over the counter with a click. The light over the knife drawer seemed to be beckoning to me.

Every movement was slow, languid, as I pulled out the drawer and picked up a knife that I knew to be sharp. It was light in my hand, surprisingly light even though it wasn't an especially large knife. But it felt solid in my grip.

I went back to the couch and sat down in front of it, my back against the armrest. I sat there for several minutes, just twisting the knife back and forward in my hands, watching it glint in the light that was seeping from the kitchen.

Something other than _this_.

G.G.G.

If you didn't read my warning at the top, I suggest you do it _now_. I'm not kidding.

G.G.G.

Then I took the decision. Curling my left hand into a fist I closed my right firmly around the handle of the knife. I shook slightly as I moved the blade closer to my arm, felt my palms go clammy, the intensity of the moment making my heart speed up a little. I rested the blade against my wrist for a second, tensing my arm, and then, taking a sharp breath I let it tear through my skin in a thin straight cut.

It was like ice and fire both at once. Blood welled up in the cut almost immediately, both numbing the cut and heating the skin around it as it started trailing down my wrist. It stunned me for a moment. I never had thought I would see a red line of blood on my own arm like this, the blue veins standing out starkly against the pale skin in thick lines, blood sliding toward the small birthmark right below the swell of my palm.

It was unbelievable. Appalling. I felt inexplicably powerful. This I understood. This physical pain that I knew where it came from and where it belonged, this pain that I could stand. This I could focus on—this I could control.

I brought the knife to my arm a second time, and this time the cut was slower. The blade was cold, so cold, and it slid easily through skin and veins, making my nerves come to life to sparkle and burn sweetly.

My arm was startling to feel warm, the heat centering in the two cuts that were oozing even hotter blood over my skin. Another cut, more blood. Red, red, red. My heart was speeding up even more, thrusting more warm blood into my arm, to the cuts, to slide slickly over my wrist, palm, fingers, _down_.

It was indeed painful, and the tears welled up in my eyes, causing me to blink in order to get rid of them so that they wouldn't obstruct my vision, but it was a pain that I could locate, a pain that made all other pain seem irrelevant at the moment, a pain that made me want more before it went away, like there was some kind of secret within myself that would be released if I just kept going, if I could just let it build up and _explode_.

I stopped counting the times the knife descended on my arm, completely enraptured by the way my body seemed to have become extra sensitive, the way I could feel every little piece of myself acutely, the way my pulse thumped in my fingertips and toes, in my elbows, eyelids, neck, ears, legs, everywhere.

It was getting hard to breathe. My heart was beating erratically, seeming to take up so much space now that my lungs didn't have enough room. My nose was clogged up, and tears were sliding into my open mouth, making my harsh shallow breaths salty and wet.

I raised the knife to cut again, but halfway through my fingers fumbled and I lost my grip. It fell to the floor with a clatter, and splashed in the blood that had pooled there. For one moment my mind cleared and I stared at the ugly cut on my arm. The jagged line seemed to symbolise my own emotions. Intense, ragged and _wrong_. Detestable.

Rejected.

Panic jolted through my gut, and I thought "What have I _done_?", but the blood loss was making me dizzy, and my mind went numb along with the rest of my body as I slid sideways to lie on the floor. My arm thumped dully where it lay stretched out in front of me, in my range of vision, spasming occasionally.

Red. Covered in red. I cut too many times.

G.G.G.

...It's sort of OK now. No more intricate descriptions anyway.

G.G.G.

I felt strangely soothed as I lay there, in a puddle of my own blood, and even though I knew that if nobody found me my blood loss would prove to be critical and I might not make it through, it was a bit of a relief that it would end. I would be released from my misery.

Maybe it would be the best after all.

I was starting to slip into a doze when the phone rang. I groaned and wondered who it was who was trying to ruin the moment for me. After a couple of rings the answering machine picked it up, and after the beep Yuji's cheery voice was heard.

"Hey, bro! How are you doing? Look, I've kept away for the past few days, hoping that you'd call me when you'd thought things over, but... You haven't, so I called Shuichi, and he said he hasn't heard from you either—"

Not talking to either of them? Well... what would I have said? I couldn't have told them, it wouldn't have resulted in anything but chaos. Still, there were so many things I wish I _had_ told Yuji, like how he should remember not to leave is keys around everywhere when I couldn't come over and unlock his apartment for him, and how he always should wear blue to his auditions because it was his best colour. Somehow this thought made me want to cry, not having told Yuji that the blue cashmere one was the _absolute_ best, and as the first tears slid from my eyes the world began to fade, and I didn't fully comprehend the last words of his message.

"Anyway, Shuichi's going over, so I thought I'd call and warn you... Call me sometime Hiro, I miss my little brother."

G.G.G.

a/n: this was the worst chapter, it'll get better now. In my opinion. Anyway... any good? I stand doubtful, but at least it's over and done with now. I was fearing I'd have to get drunk to write this eventually. I only got on a sugar rush. Much better for the brain... I hope. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed the... morbid gross cutting scene. O.o


	18. Media

Summary: K's phone line is busy :P

G.G.G.

It was far too early in the morning that my mobile rang. It had been a rough few days for me and I was sleeping deeply when the phone started playing its high-pitched melody, the vibrator making it clatter against the top of the night table. I woke quickly, but I was drowsy as I reached for the cell phone, frowning in a disgruntled manner. I squinted at the small buttons, straining my neck while trying to coordinate my thumb enough to press the one with the green symbol on it, and then I held it to my ear without bothering to check who was calling. I was just relieved to relax my neck again, and closed my eyes as I burrowed slightly into the downy hotel pillow.

"Ello?" I mumbled, on the verge of falling asleep again.

"K." Tohma's solemn voice said, "I have some bad news."

My sleep-foggy mind instantly feared the worst. "Did the special pocky shipment not come through?" I asked anxiously.

Tohma went silent for a moment, and then he said curtly: "No, the shipment is fine, it should be there right on time. It's an infinitely more important matter that I am calling you about." I wondered avidly what could be more important than pocky when Tohma continued, "Nakano was found bleeding gravely in the living room of his apartment."

For a minute my mind went blank as the words went through my head repeatedly until the meaning dawned on me. Then I shot up in a sitting position, clutching the phone tightly in my hand. "_What_!"

"He had cut himself repeatedly in the arm, and he was unconscious by the time Shuichi found him."

I was now wide awake, and a highly uncomfortable feeling was swimming in my stomach, like a bucket of ice had been tipped over in it. "He _cut_ himself? How could this _happen_?" I asked with a breath that felt like a gasp, my voice tinged with exasperation—or at least that's what I told myself it was.

"I don't know." Tohma's voice was calm, but I could sense his worry beneath it, knowing that he felt like world was slipping through his fingers, knowing because I knew Tohma, and because I felt that way myself. It was surreal, I felt dizzy somehow, like it was a strange dream that I couldn't find the right side up in, like the situation was slipping away from me and I had no way of controlling it.

It couldn't be true. It just _couldn't_. "Is this for real, or are you kidding me?" I was fully aware of who I was talking to, but it was half four am and I was tired out of my mind. I had to ask.

"Would I ever joke about such a thing?" Was Tohma's low answer.

"No, no, of course not," I assured him quickly, "it's just that this whole thing is out_rageous_."

"Indeed." I heard his chair creak, probably as he turned around to look out over the night-view of Tokyo through his office window. He works too late nights.

I frowned and shook my head. "_How_ could this _happen_?" I asked the room around me rather than Tohma, but after a while he sighed and answered anyway.

"As I said: I don't know. He hasn't woken up yet. He is being attended to at the hospital as we speak."

"Is he going to be alright?"

Tohma paused, and the world seemed to freeze over before he took a deep breath and swallowed. When he spoke his voice was hard as steel, but I could still hear the little quiver that was buried there. "I don't know."

I closed my eyes. I wished that I would wake up in a minute and forget all about this. That I would get up at seven, that Bad Luck would be recuperating in Tokyo in preparation of another tour, that I would go back to making phone calls and yell at people to get things done, maybe smiling that chilling smile and slide my hand inconspicuously towards my gun, watching the eyes of the merchants grow wide as they assured me that of course they would have it done the by the day I specified.

But Tohma was silent over the phone line, in another country, watching the night come to life as I was going out to face a new day in a few fickle hours. It was really happening.

"I'm sorry that I don't have any more information, K."

"It's alright Tohma. I know you always do your best."

"Yeah." It was a short whisper and sounded almost like he didn't agree. Another silence, and then: "Look I'll... I'll call you if anything happens."

"Wait," I said, regaining my sensible side for a moment, "What are we going to do about the tour?"

"Oh, crap. I hadn't even thought about that." He sounded weary and tired, and cursing was certainly not something I'd heard him do many times. "Try to put it on hiatus. Stay away from making any announcements about it. We might need you here though. Do you think Ekihu could handle things instead of you?"

"Just barely. He doesn't have my connections, or my way of persuading people."

"Ah, but very few do." I could hear the weak smile in his voice. "You can't make that into a flaw of his abilities."

"I suppose." This is good. Do not think about Hiro right now, focus on Ekihu. "A translator would probably be a good idea. He knows everything about what we need for the set and how to organise it, he just needs to be able to express it exactly, which will be hard if he has to do it in English by himself."

"Hmm... well, that's settled then. We'll get him a translator and put him in charge. I assume he arrived safely last week?" His voice had reverted back to his business tone, and I felt a bit relieved at the familiarity of it. This was real, this was true, this was far from the surrealness of hearing that Hiro'd... Tour, Ekihu, Tour Ekihu, Tour—

"Oh, yes. The trailers are fine too, as I am sure I told you when you asked the three previous times as well."

"No harm in making sure, is there?" He asked wryly.

"Nope." I agreed, twisting the bedcovers in my hand, the cotton warming quickly in my clammy hand. "Tohma, take care of yourself. Go to sleep. You need it."

"I'm not exactly in top priority right now. It can wait. You'll hear from me again in a few hours."

I slumped back against the headboard of the bed. "Alright. Bye."

"Goodbye."

I could hear the tone when he cut the call, and I pressed the hang up button myself as I wiggled down beneath the covers again. I had a few hours of sleep left, and it would be foolish to just give up on them right away. But I knew deep down that I wouldn't be able to give in to oblivion very easily as I grappled on to the phone like it was some kind of lifeline. When news came I wouldn't waste any time before answering.

G.G.G.

After dozing a few hours I finally decided to call Shuichi. After all, it was possible that Tohma had succumbed to fatigue—and goodness knows he needed it.

The phone was answered after three beeps.

"The display says 'Crazy Manager' so I guess you have a valid reason for calling." I was a bit startled at the voice which is decidedly not Shuichi's.

"_Whaa? Yuki?_" That however was Shuichi's voice, but it sounded further away from the phone, and also like he was barely awake.

"_Go back to sleep_." Yuki said to Shuichi, and I could hear Shuichi's "_Mmmh, 'kay_" as Yuki returned to talking to me.

"So what is it?" His tone was a bit brusque, but then again, isn't it always?

I figured it would be better to get directly to the point. "How is Hiro doing?"

"The doctors say that they've got it under control."

It was as if something suddenly unclenched inside me and I felt boneless for a second. "Oh. Good. Has he woken up yet?"

"Not as such."

I frowned. "May I ask what you mean by that?" Gods I needed a cigarette.

Yuki sighed lightly. "He opened his eyes for a little while, but the nurse said that she didn't think he was aware of what was going on."

"Oh."

There was a small pause before he started speaking again, sounding almost bored. "Is there anything else you wanted?"

I stared up at the ceiling over the bed, following the line of a crack that I hadn't seen before, but which was just visible in the morning sunlight spilling in through the window. "Yeah. How are the rest of you?" I rolled over in bed towards the night table and pulled out a cigarette from an open pack lying there. "How is Shuichi doing?"

"He just found his best friend bleeding to death." Yuki said dryly, "How do you _think_ he's doing."

I picked up the lighter, flicked it on, lit the cigarette and took a long drag before answering. "Not too well I suppose." I tossed the lighter back onto the table with a clatter. "But then it's never happened before. What did he do when he found him?"

"He called me. Had a panic attack while I called the ambulance. Then he's been pacing around in the waiting room refusing to eat. He's sleeping now though." A pause, "Or maybe he's just using it as an excuse to snuggle me."

"So you're still at the hospital then?" I took another drag, watching the burning move upwards on the cigarette, and then I knocked the ashes off in the ashtray.

"Yes." He answered with an exhale. "The family is here too. Other people have been told not to come. There've been a lot of phone calls."

"Do you know if there are any journalists around?"

"I haven't heard anything. I'm not sure it's gotten out yet."

"But it will, inevitably. People just don't know how to keep from gossiping." Smoke from the cigarette was curling in front of my face, and I blew at it to make it dissipate.

"Perhaps."

He sounded tired then, and I remembered that it was the middle of the night there. "Tell Shuichi I'll be coming back soon. I'm going to take care of some business and then I'm on the first flight to Tokyo."

"Right. Will do."

"See ya'."

He hung up without another word.

G.G.G.

It really was unfathomable. When Hiro told me that he was unhappily in love I never imagined something like _this_ would happen. I still can't believe it fully.

He had looked so serene when he walked towards his trailer that night, with the moonlight spilling down on him, so lonely as he walked away. He had looked beautiful then, not that it is uncommon for him to look beautiful, but as the smiles of the evening faded from his lips, and the slow sadness lit up his eyes there was still something... glowing with him. Like he knew a secret, and it was keeping him warm and safe from his pain.

It's stupid, I know, but looking back on that night that is how I remember it.

I hadn't talked to him about it since, but maybe that was the greatest fault I could have done. Maybe all of this might not have happened if he had been able to speak to somebody about it. I had failed him. I should have supported him more. I saw the sorrow in his eyes many times after our conversation that night—but then again, maybe I noticed it then because I knew that it had a place there, in the corners of his eyes, in his hasty glances at his peers, the way he would stare down at his own hands when he played the guitar.

It is frightening to think that he let himself succumb to the pain. Frightening because he is one of the strongest people I have ever met, and if he were to give up, what chances could others stand? And if he hadn't given up? If he had fought nail and teeth against the pain and wanted to make it through, but was overpowered by it... If the force of love was so strong, so destructive... It bore not think of.

Fact remained that Hiro was in hospital from wounds he had inflicted upon himself, and the media was going to have a field day with it as soon as it got out. Which I had no doubt that it would sooner rather than later.

That would be when the backlash came to hit full front. He wouldn't be given time for solitude and recovering before he was bombarded with the journalists' questions, before they tried to hunt him down to get their story, paparazzi and heaps of fan mail spewing their sincerely meant but somehow still empty words at him.

He would not have any peace until they knew everything. But he might never have peace of mind if they did find out his reasons for harming himself.

Of course, he couldn't be left alone at any time after this. It might be thought of as a cruelty, but in the light of the most recent events and the fact that I am an employed man... Safeguarding an investment would be encompassed in my work assignments.

There would be an outcry, of that I was certain. A lot of negative publicity doubting the band and their ability to make it through the tour in America—if those plans were indeed to be followed through after discussing it with the company and all parties involved. There would be a lot of fuss centering on Bad Luck, and the outcome would not be pretty.

Hiro would have to be kept away from their eager ears and their sharp tongues—and not to forget the hungry cameras—if any sort of recovery was to be made in his fragile state of mind.

Keep him close. Keep him safe.

It was with those thoughts that I boarded the plane which was destined towards Tokyo.

G.G.G.


	19. Sickness

Summary: Hiro in teh hospital... woooo.

G.G.G.

It wasn't a dreamy wakening, where you are slowly being pulled to the surface of awareness and everything becomes brighter as you rise up out of the sleepy haze that's clinging to your senses—no, Hiro just suddenly was awake, his eyes wide open and staring at a white, almost anti-septic looking ceiling.

He felt a bit disoriented and drained, and yet more aware and awake than he had done in a long while. He wondered where he were and how long he'd been asleep for. The last thing he could remember was lying on the floor, crying after—oh.

_Oh_.

He sat up, so quickly that he nearly toppled over the edge of the bed, but before he tipped over somebody exclaimed "Hiro!" and caught his arm in a steady grip.

Blood rushed out of his head, and Hiro closed his eyes and shook his head to make the dizziness dissipate.

"Are you okay?" Shuichi's voice was surprisingly low and coated with worry.

"M'fine." Hiro mumbled and rubbed his temples with his fingers, noticing the elastic bandage wrapped around his left forearm, all the way down to the elbow. It felt tight and a little rough against his skin, and the wad tied around his wrist was rubbing against his jaw. It looked white and fresh, but was dotted with red in a few places.

It was surreal to watch, and he wondered what his arm looked like beneath the bandage, if the wounds would have closed together now that there wasn't blood sipping from them, if they would be dark or thin, if there was a pattern, if he in his delusional state had spelled out a word on his arm—it had really happened.

He had actually _done_ that to himself.

Hiro shuddered and looked around the room. It was a private room by the look of it, quite small with walls painted in the same sterile white as the ceiling. Shuichi was the only other person in the room, and he was sitting on the edge of the bed, looking imploringly at Hiro with a small frown on his face.

"Why did you do it?"

Why _had_ he done it? Because he had been in pain. Because it had made him feel like he still had power over _some_thing even though it was only his own physical pain. It had been soothing afterwards. It had felt nice. It had been _good_.

"Hiro, _answer_ me!"

Hiro's eyes flickered up to stare into Shuichi's honest violet ones not far from his face.

Why he'd done it? He couldn't answer that. He couldn't tell _anybody_ why, because then something would be ruined, he was certain of it. He pulled his legs to his chest and buried his face in his knees and mumbled, more to himself than to Shuichi, "I can't, I can't, I can't..."

"Hiro." There was a sob in Shuichi's voice now, "Hiro, _please_."

Shuichi's hands were at his face, pulling Hiro up to face him. Tears were slowly leaking from Shuichi's eyes, and Hiro wondered if tears were running down his own cheeks. It didn't seem implausible.

"Remember what you said, when I was leaving Bad Luck after the—" he swallowed, "—the Aizawa thing?"

Hiro nodded slightly, as far as Shuichi's hands would let him, and whispered "Yeah."

Shuichi sniffed and knocked their foreheads together as he almost yelled out: "Well I'm not letting you leave me!"

Hiro's face scrunched up, letting the tears fall freely from his eyes as he choked out an "I hear you."

Shuichi's arms were around him in an instant, clutching him so tightly he wondered for a moment if he would be able to breathe.  
"I thought I was going to lose you, you _idiot_." Shuichi's words, soaked through with tears were spoken into Hiro's neck. "Why didn't you _tell_ me? I could have _helped_. What's wrong Hiro? Please just tell me."

"I can't Shuichi. I can't."

"But _why_?" He bit his teeth together around the last word, making it hard and sharp.

"You don't understand, Shuichi, I can't tell you. Please leave it be."

There was a pause before Shuichi spoke, and when he did it was with a tremble. "Is it my fault?"

"Oh, no, no, no," Hiro wound his arms around Shuichi's back and pressed him close, "it's nothing to do with you. You haven't done anything wrong Shuichi, believe me."

"But you won't tell me, and you're so _sad_, and I don't know what to do about it." He wailed, and Hiro knew that he had been wrong. He wasn't alone. He had Shuichi. He had Yuji. He had his parents, and his friends. He wasn't alone, no matter how much he convinced himself that he was.

"It's not your fault Shuichi." He said thickly into Shuichi's ear, "It's my own."

They were silent for a moment, just controlling their breathing and holding each other tightly.

"If there's anything, _anything_... Just come to me, alright? We don't have to talk, we can just stare at the air all day, just let me _be there_, Hiro. Just let me be there."

Hiro took a deep breath—well, as deep a breath he could take with Shuichi's arms restraining his lungs—and did the only thing he could do. "I promise."

G.G.G.

Weird POV change right about here. Why change the POV you might ask? Well, it's because of the tone I want and the fact that I can make this so much shorter from first POV. I'm lazy.

G.G.G.

Shuichi had gone to get my family after a while, and when I asked Yuji later why they hadn't been in the room too he said that the doctors had recommended for as few people as possible being in the room when I woke up, without leaving me alone of course. It had been decided that Shuichi was to be sitting with me because his trauma of seeing me "in a bloody puddle" might be lessened if he could make certain that I was alright.

Seeing my parents had been a quite gruesome affair, and I was glad to have Yuji in the room. Yuki might have helped a little too, because he and Shuichi were standing in a corner, Yuki's hand combing through Shuichi's hair as Shuichi leaned back into him, and Yuki glared at anybody who dared look their way. He glared at me a bit too, but I wasn't too sure whether he was truly angry or if he was tired out of his mind.

Yuji flopped down on the bed next to my feet and helped me evade most of our parents' questions. They were disappointed in me, that much I could deduce before they even uttered a word—I could see it in their faces when the worry left them at the sight of me sitting up in bed, how their frowns lessened for a moment right before mother's mouth thinned and pursed, her nose scrunching slightly, while father's cheek twitched and his eyes narrowed.

They told me that I was to come straight back home at once, that I had proved that I was unable to take care of myself, that I was unreliable, that I couldn't expect to be allowed any freedom if this was what I did with it, that I was a disgrace and that any actions of the sort that had put me in hospital would cease at once.

If Yuji hadn't been there I don't know whether I had been able to fend them, or their claims off. However, as it was he was there, and he really stood up for me. I don't know how to thank him for that. I don't know if I can. They would have walked all over me, I wasn't sure of anything any more, my sense seemed to have gone out the window, my mind was completely blank at moments, and their words became fuzzy in my ears.

It was a draining experience, and when eventually the nurse came and politely told us that the visitors had to leave they left without protest, telling me that they were only a phone call away if I needed them, but made it clear that they expected no repetition of the "event" in the future.

Shuichi and Yuki left with them, Yuki mumbling a tired "Bye", but Shuichi petted my face almost as if ensuring that I was actually there before he gave me another bone crushing hug and scurried out the door while flinging a "You promised!" back over his shoulder.

G.G.G.

And... POV switch again. Because I love Yuji.

G.G.G.

When they were alone, Yuji turned over on the bed and scooted backwards until he was sitting next to Hiro, leaning against the wall behind the headboard.

"Hey Bro." He said amicably, wriggling his arm around Hiro's shoulders.

"Yuji." The corner of Hiro's mouth quirked, and he tilted his head to look amusedly at his brother. "And you're not leaving because...?"

Yuji scrunched his nose a little. "I'm under orders not to—Not that I don't love to stay, of course, but N-G productions take it as the company's best interest to not leave you alone at any time. I volunteered to stay, thought you might prefer me to some gruff stranger." Yuji shuddered a little, "They guy they had sent here looked positively scary."

Hiro gaped, frowning. "I can't be left alone? You're going to be around all the time?"

Yuji smiled weakly and scratched the back of his head. "No, just until they release you. K will pick you up and take you to his apartment for the night."

Hiro's mind froze for a moment. "_K's here_?"

"Not yet. He's flying in this afternoon, and then he's going to pick up some stuff for you at your place before he comes to get you. Does he have your key?" Yuji frowned in confusion.

Hiro nodded, feeling both nauseous and sort of excited at once. "Yeah. I got tired of changing hinges every other week, so I gave him one."

Yuji seemed to deflate a little. "Oh. How not deviant of you. I thought I finally had something juicy on you."

_If you only knew_, Hiro thought, _if you only knew_.

Hiro smirked and said smugly: "No, no, I'm the sensible one of us two. You'll probably never have anything to hold over my head that I can't beat with the things I know about _you_."

"Hey, at least _pretend_ to be sickly. Give us a cough." Yuji stuck out his tongue and prodded Hiro's side. Hiro made a face back and pushed his brother's finger away.

"I don't have a cold, Yuji."

Yuji's face instantly became serious and he gave Hiro a long sad look. "I know. But at least then I would be able to help."

Hiro turned his eyes down to his lap. "I don't know what to say to that." He mumbled.

"Well me neither. I don't know what to do to make you happy, Hiro, I don't even know if I _can_." Yuji leaned his head against Hiro's cheek, the sleek hair tickling Hiro's nose. They were silent for several minutes before Yuji sat up again. "Come on, bro. Lie down . Don't want to nurse to yell at me for making you stay up when she comes to check on you."

Hiro grumbled a little but lay down anyway. "It's not like I've got some serious disease or anything. I cut myself. It was an _accident_."

Yuji smirked as he stood up, tugging the sheet up to Hiro's neck. "An accident was it? You just _fell_ on the knife repeatedly?" He made a silly intonation to the word 'fell', moving his hands in a suiting manner that made his question sound even more silly. He did have some acting talent after all.

"Oh, stop it. I mean I never meant it to go this far. It was a mistake. It won't happen again." Their eyes met, and Yuji tucked the covers tighter around Hiro's shoulders.

"I believe you." He said slowly, "But I'm not sure your bosses will. You might not be allowed to go to the toilet alone for a while bro, better get used to it."

"Surely they would let me be alone _there_." Hiro said, disbelievingly.

"Oh, I don't know," Yuji objected,"there are people with strange fetishes. You just watch out so that they don't have any cameras on them."

Hiro struggled his hand out from beneath the sheets to swat at his brother's head, who ducked, but not quickly enough. "Oh, eww, Yuji."

Yuji grinned. "Alright, alright. I'll just sit down over here then. You just try to sleep again, okay?"

"Okay." Hiro mumbled as Yuji went to sit down in the chair not far from the bed. Hiro burrowed into the pillow, closing his eyes and trying _not_ to think about seeing K later that day.

G.G.G.


	20. Pulse

Summary: Stuffs.  
Warning: Boy touching boy. In a very subtexty type way. K, you are an idiot.

G.G.G.

"So what are we going to do now?" Suguru looked at me intently as his question lingered in the air.

Nobody spoke. It was as though we had come into a stand-still, the eye of the storm, a place where time seemed to have stopped—if only for a moment—to give room for the confusion and inability to act that rested over the company present at the emergency NG meeting. Sakano was staring morosely at the table, his hair in a mess, looking like he was about to have a panic attack any moment. Suguru's face was drawn and worried, and even Shuichi was more solemn than I had ever seen him.

Or, rather, they were all looking at me to get things on track again. For me to tell them what to do, make sense of the situation. But the problem was that there _was_ no sense to be made of it. I felt just as confused and stunned as the rest of them. Even Tohma didn't have a clear answer to the question of what our next step would be. He had regained his composure though, and he was looking very calm and professional in his chair on the short end of the large conference table, his eyes scanning us all thoughtfully.

"A decision must be made, and soon." He said in his smooth low voice, soft yet demanding.

Shuichi frowned. "What about Hiro? Shouldn't he be the one to say whether or not he thinks he can do it?"

I glanced at Tohma, but his expression told me nothing. I loathed myself for doing this, but... "It is better if Hiroshi is taken out of the environment where he was spurred to... act the way he did. On tour he will be under constant surveillance and we would be able to stop any events of the self-harming kind before he even attempted them."

"It would be in the interest of the company to follow through with the plans."

Shuichi scowled at Tohma's comment, and Suguru looked pensive. Sakano's face lit up with hope.

"Isn't that a bit heartless?" Suguru asked timidly, twirling his water-glass slightly with his fingers, "He obviously needs help. He needs to rest."

"It would be the best for all parties," Sakano added eagerly, his cheeks flushing. "Nakano-san needs to get away from here, and the tour won't be canceled. Our time planning it won't have been wasted, we won't lose any money, and Bad Luck's fan-base won't diminish—" he was silenced by Shuichi standing up from his chair, the hind legs scraping against the floor roughly.

He placed his hands on the flat smooth tabletop, his posture surprisingly intimidating. "Are you listening to yourselves?" he said in a barely controlled angry voice, his eyes blazing with fury, "This is Hiro we're talking about. Not some nameless faceless random person. It's my best friend. It's _Hiro_."

He glared at me, Tohma and Sakano in turn, then he turned with a huff, stomped over to the door, opened it with a flourish, and let it close behind him with a soundly bang.

Silence reigned for a few moments, and then Fujisaki spoke up again. "What if Hiro doesn't agree? What if he is not capable of partaking in the tour?"

Tohma clasped his hands, twining his fingers together, and leaned his chin on them. "But he will." His eyes sparkled, and he smiled at Suguru in that infuriatingly happy way that was all the more dangerous for it. "There is a contract. He _will_ go. You all will."

And that was that.

But Suguru's eyes were hard as he watched his cousin for a few seconds longer.

G.G.G.

Conversation was stilted as I picked Hiro up at the hospital. He wouldn't really look at me, keeping his face either turned away or hidden slightly behind his hair. Or both, as it seemed when he was sitting beside me in the car, staring listlessly out the passenger seat window.

I had gotten help packing some of Hiro's things together by a grumbling Shuichi, who I feared I was going to be on the bad side of for quite a while. When we arrived at my place I got out of the car and opened the trunk, picking up a bag that I handed to Hiro. He slung it over his shoulder, putting his hands in his jeans pockets, resting on a hip, and staring at me as if waiting for something.

My mind stopped somewhere on the fact that he was actually looking at me for the first time in over a week. He looked defiant and relaxed, like he'd switched personalities as he was stepping out of the car, from quiet and pensive to the all-out teenage rebel type.

I couldn't believe that he'd been so depressed that he'd resorted to harming himself during the time I had been away. It still seemed too far fetched and _wrong_.

"You'll have to show the way. I've never been here before." His voice startled me, and I shook my head, locking the car.

"Of course, this way." I smiled and started toward the stairs leading up to the front door of the apartment building.

G.G.G.

He dumped his bag on the floor next to the couch in my living room, not even glancing at what was inside. It felt uncomfortable and stilted. He hadn't expressed any particular pleasure over having to spend several days in my company, and I surely didn't feel up to having to talk to him about what was bothering him. He certainly didn't seem like he wanted to tell me.

He sat down in the couch, his body sinking down into the soft padding, making him seem smaller, and the expression on his face was so lost for a second that I didn't know what I was going to do. It wasn't like with Michael, I couldn't go over there and just hug him, try to comfort him with assurance and nearness.

No, with Hiro I had to take the more manly route.

"Would you like a beer?"

Oh yes, very manly indeed. Beer. Get a grip.

He glanced up at me for a second, flashing a short humourless smile, and nodded. "That would be nice."

I turned and went straight into the kitchen, up to the refrigerator and leaned my forehead against the cold metal. What was wrong with me? I felt so awkward and confused. He was acting so strangely, so coldly... Like he didn't know me. It didn't feel like it was Hiro who was sitting on my sofa.

Then again, wasn't that to be expected? He had almost taken his own life, wouldn't that make him different from the person I knew him to be? I couldn't get past it, I couldn't stop thinking about it, couldn't glance at him without hearing Tohma's voice inside my head repeating the words "tried to kill himself", never minding the fact that Tohma had never said those actual words over the phone.

When horrible things happen, Tohma's voice tends to run through my head. There's just something with it that amplifies everything and makes it seem ten times worse. I sighed and opened the door to the fridge, pulling out two bottles of beer and uncorking them quickly.

I tossed the caps on the table and went back into the living room where Hiro was staring at his hands in his lap.

"Here you go," I said, handing him one of the bottles and sitting down on the other end of the two-seat couch. It really is a too-stuffy couch. I don't know what I was thinking when I bought it, it's white of all colours, with small blue decorative pillows, and frills that I cut off the minute Judy went back to—oh, that's right. Judy picked it.

Hiro's hand trembled a little as he lifted the bottle to his mouth to take a drink. It was a very light tremble, but I could still perceive it. His lips shaped an 'o' around the mouth of the bottle, and his Adam's apple bobbed smoothly as he drank a long drag. He looked a bit scruffy, but not a lot, seeing as his facial hair growth wasn't much to speak of, but it was enough to require a shave now and then. His eyes were half closed, gazing at the green bottle in front of his face, eyelashes glinting in a light brown colour.

He released the bottle with a soft 'pop' and I averted my eyes, dragging them down from his face to rest on the sofa—where they instantly came upon his hand. It was slim and tanned, short-nailed and with callused fingertips, lying innocently on the sofa cushion, looking soft and warm and _touchable_. I just wanted to reach out and slip my fingers between his, feel the skin right between his fingers where the digits met the palm, slide over the dips and lines of his palm, follow the hard line of his knuckles with my fingers, trace the dark veins on the back of his hand.

I turned away, shaking my head, taking a sip of the beer and making sure not to choke. I don't know where my sense of proper behaviour had gone, but it certainly did not seem to be residing in my body right then. I had to stop looking at him, and I had to keep my mind away from the thoughts that made me want to look at him. Maybe it would be a good idea to bring up the tour, even though it would make me feel like an arse. I would have to tell him eventually anyway, especially seeing as we were scheduled to leave in three days.

"The tour is still on." Eloquent. I couldn't even do _this_ properly.

"Oh?" Came Hiro's absent-minded answer, his hand coming up to pick at the edge of the label.

"We're leaving in three days. I, er, I'm sorry if you'd planned something else."

Hiro turned his face towards me, eyes narrowed and sparkling. "I didn't do it to skip out on work, if that's what you're implying."

"No, no, that's not it at all!" I spluttered, almost swallowing my mouthful of beer down the wrong way, "I didn't think you did, I was just—oh, forget it."

"Gladly," he muttered, tapping his nails against the bottle. He stared morosely at it.

I winced and closed my eyes, gathering my wits about me. "You won't have to put up with me once we're on tour. Kenny will sleep in your trailer and accompany you to places."

I opened my eyes to see his shoulders drop a little, as if he was relieved, and then he became still again. His gaze rose slowly to meet mine. "I'll be allowed to go to the bathroom alone, right?"

I blinked. "I've... never pondered the opposite." I paused. "...Why?"

"Oh, it was just something stupid Yuji said." Hiro shook his head and smiled, taking a sip from his bottle.

"Okay." I said slowly, "Anyway, you'll only have to hang about here for three days, because we're still going according to schedule. We couldn't change the tour dates."

"Why couldn't you just stay at my place instead?" He tilted his head back, gazing at me with his neck resting in the back of the couch.

"The press. They'll flock at your house as soon as it leaks out that you were in hospital."

"Oh."

We were silent for several minutes, looking at anything but each other. I think it probably dawned on him then that he would have to be around me _constantly_ for those three days. The air felt heavy around me, and I didn't know if I could manage three days with an atmosphere like that. I wanted to clear things up, wanted to know what was bothering him so that we could start working past it and not let it lie in the way of everything we did. Something was obviously pressing him, and that was why he didn't act like himself. I took a breath and turned towards him again.

"Why did you do it?" I asked, trying not to sound too curious or probing, just like I was a friend who needed to know. Which I was. Or at least, I hoped he saw me as a friend. I saw him as one of mine.

He sighed and picked some more at the label on his bottle before speaking. "I... want to go to bed." His eyes met mine, but they looked oddly devoid of feeling. "Long day and all that."

I smiled down cynically at the bottle in my hand, brought it to my mouth, tipped my head back and drank the last of the beer before getting up. "I'll get the futon out then. You can take the bed."

I went into the bedroom to make the beds and stuff the random items of clothing that were littering the floor into the wardrobe. I hadn't had time to clean up when I came home right after I'd gotten off the plane, I had just dropped my things off and left again for the meeting at NG, and the place looked just like a bachelor's pad that had gone through a raid.

Which was—to all points and purposes—what had occurred when I was packing for the second phase of our tour.

When I came out again it was to find Hiro leaning against the wall just outside the bedroom, dressed in a t-shirt and boxers. I almost walked straight into him, stopping my movement at the last second. His face was just a few inches away, warm and close. His eyes had a drowsy glow to them, and I could smell the mint on his breath as he softly bid me "Goodnight", sidestepped me and slipped into the room beneath my arm.

I got ready for bed, and then I sat for a while in the living room. I stared absently at the television without really seeing, under the ruse that I was checking to see if the press had gotten wind of Hiro's hospital stay.

Eventually I couldn't put it off anymore, but silently turned the TV off and made my way to the bedroom. The moon was lighting the room up with an eerie blue glow from the window, casting strange unfamiliar shadows. He hadn't pulled the blinds down.

I looked over at the bed, making out his shape in the weak lighting, an oddly shaped lump in the middle of the mattress. He was completely still. I couldn't hear the sound of his breathing. For the merest of seconds I felt a rush of ice-cold panic run through me, then I stepped closer to the bed and leaned down over it to look at Hiro's face.

His expression was calm and his breathing slow and almost inaudible. He had curled up on his side slightly, the covers had slipped off his torso to rest behind his back, his arms turned towards his body, the bandaged arm resting over his heart. The blue light painted shadows around his eyes, nose and chin, and I noticed that he'd shaved.

I sat down on the side of the bed, resting my weight on my left hand that I placed just below his elbows. I could feel his warmth through the blanket where my thigh pressed against his back. His chest moved in and out with his slow deep breaths, the edge of his t-shirt just tickling my wrist in the lightest touch on the inhale.

I reached out with my hand and touched his neck just below the jawline where shadow made our skin darker, and felt the warm beating of his pulse. It was soothing to sit there, just looking at him, knowing that he was still alive, diffusing the images in my head of him bloodied and cold on the floor.

I trailed lower on his neck with my hand, sliding my fingertips over his skin, following the thumping heat of the vein to the hollow of his throat.

He looked so peaceful, and yes, beautiful, without any sorrows or worries, that I could almost imagine that it hadn't happened. That he hadn't been miserable, that he hadn't slashed his arm open, that he hadn't had to have Shuichi find him in a puddle of his own blood. That everything was just the same as it had always been.

I bent down towards his face, hovering over his cheek for a moment before leaning over and pressing my mouth to his temple, feeling the edge of his hairline against my lips. We breathed in at the same time, my chest touching his side, and for one moment everything seemed perfect— warm, slow, sweet and perfect.

Then Hiro moved. I shied away, moving my face to an appropriate distance from his, and hoped he hadn't been aware of me being so close. I thought my breath had flown away to never come back. For a few endless seconds he shifted in the bed—oh God, _my_ bed—and slowly his eyes squinted open. My hand was still on his neck, feeling the thump of his pulse so close, and rushing faster.

"K?" he mumbled slowly, brow furrowing tiredly at me.

"Sleep, Hiro."

His mouth opened slightly as if he was about to say something, then he seemed to change his mind, and with a last flickering gaze at my face he closed his eyes again. He gave a soft sigh, shifted his legs a little, and then he lay still again.

I slowly slid my hand from his neck, almost missing the soft beating against my fingertips. I crawled over to the mattress on the floor and curled up on it, my body turned towards the wall.

I didn't know what came over me, I just had to feel it. To know he was alright, that he was still a living breathing warm man, that he wasn't lost to me yet. I rubbed my nose into the pillowcase, the cotton feeling crisp and clean—and chilly against my hot face.

G.G.G.


	21. Gun

Summary: K and Hiro spend the day together.  
Warning: Nothing. Well, there might be something to warn for, but only if you notice it yourself. I'm not going to warn you for something you might not notice.

G.G.G.

The next day didn't progress much better. Not at first anyway. I woke up feeling tense and uncomfortable. Futons don't agree with me, I always wake up feeling grumpy and unrested after sleeping on one. I'm a thick-mattress-that-shapes-itself-to-fit-your-body kind of guy. As it was, I couldn't be bothered to do anything strenuous, instead I just rolled over on my stomach and did a lazy semi-push-up during which I bent my knees so that I ended up in a sitting position.

My feet were cold against my bum through the pyjama trousers. I glanced over at the bed and found it to be empty, the covers bunched at the foot.

_Some_thing was missing, my sleep-fuddled mind deduced, but I am a wreck the first few seconds after waking. Somebody... Sweet, warm, breathing—Hiro. I blinked, mind clearing considerably. Hiro wasn't there.

I groaned and got to my feet, swaying a little before finding my balance. Manager duties called. I couldn't leave Hiro unsupervised for any longer period of time.

I stumbled into the kitchen, rubbing one hand over my eyes while using the other to steady myself on the doorpost.

"Morning," Hiro's soft voice greeted me.

I let my had slip from my eyes, and it accidentally slapped my thigh as it fell limply to my side. Hiro was sitting at the kitchen table, using two of the four chairs. He was sitting on one of them, leaning his side against the back-rest, while his legs were placed on the other, one leg stretched out to its full length, the other bent at the knee and tucked close to his upper body.

"Hey," I answered, "Found any breakfast?"

"I made coffee." He was holding a cup in his hands, his fingers curled around the porcelain, and he raised it towards me in indication. "I didn't dare do anything else though, not after I found the hand grenades behind the jam."

"You did?" I asked, in badly hidden excitement. Hey, I'd been looking for those for months.

"Yep," he confirmed, "Which was when I figured your kitchen would be at least twice as lethal as anybody else's and gave up the thought of a breakfast consisting of anything other than coffee."

"Don't underestimate the power of coffee," I grinned, walking over to the cupboard over the coffee maker. There was only a minuscule amount of coffee left in the pot. Oh well, I could make some more.

"I'm not. I feel like I could watch the entire Thornbird series right now. Twice."

I stopped moving, my hand frozen on the handle of the cupboard. I turned slightly to look at him. His eyes were wide and alert, his hair slightly ruffled like he'd brushed it and then run his hands through it several times, he was wearing jeans—as is his wont—and his fingers were moving quickly, tapping a silent melody on the cup. He'd had a lot of coffee alright.

"How much have you had, exactly?" I asked slowly.

He blinked, and scrunched his face up slightly, "About... two and a half pot. And by the way, you're out of coffee-beans."

Out of coffee-beans? Surely not. That would be a travesty. He'd got to be kidding. The corner of my mouth twitched into a smile as I waited for him to tell me that he was joking. This, however, did not happen. All he did was smile back at me sweetly and take a sip of coffee.

The strange twisted smile fell from my lips in a nanosecond, and I whipped around, flinging the cupboard open, grabbing the coffee-bean can and tearing the lid off.

The ground coffee powder that was hiding in the corners amounted up to maybe three beans. That wasn't nearly enough caffeine.

I was out of coffee.

I. Was out. Of Coffee. And the reason for the sudden lack of the necessary drink was sitting at the kitchen table with a cup that was not yet empty in his hands.

Slowly, slowly I put the dreadfully empty coffee-bean can down and once again turned to look at Hiro. He was tracing a pattern on the tabletop, humming softly and waving the mug around in the air in tune with it.

I stalked over to him, hovering by his side until he looked up at me with his eyes wide open, looking terribly innocent.

I shifted my gaze from his face to the cup, and instantly he brought it closer to himself, cradling it in his hands.

"I'm not giving you the cup," he said defiantly, shifting his jaw slightly to the left.

"I couldn't care less about the cup," I stated, leaning closer to him over the back of the chair, "But you _will_ give me the coffee."

"I'm not giving you the cup," he repeated petulantly, and I smirked. Well, that wasn't a problem. I could manage. Deliberately slowly I bent over the chair, bringing my face down in level with the his, and then I started drinking from the cup, my teeth clanking slightly against the ceramic rim.

I saw his eyes in my peripheral vision, startled and staring at me widely. The coffee itself wasn't too hot as it had probably been poured a few minutes previous, it was dark and strong and soothing.

I brought my hand up to tilt the cup, trying to change the angle to make it easier to swallow. However, after a few gulps the lack of air became rather pressing, and I let the cup go with a wink and a grin.

"Told you."

Hiro just nodded, his fingers white around the cup. I wondered for a moment if it would break in his grip, but then I shook it off, not having the strength to care before the caffeine reached my system.

"When I start feeling slightly more human we'll have to go shopping, since you used up all of my coffee."

"Okay," he said slowly, unfolding and getting up from his seated position. He walked over to the sink and set the cup down with a small clink. His movements seemed measured and almost forcibly relaxed. "I need to be alone for a bit," he mumbled, starting to make his way towards the living room, shoulders slightly hunched and hands clasped in front of him.

"Where are you going?" I asked wearily. He knew I wasn't allowed to let him be alone.

He sighed and stopped in the doorway, leaning his front against the wall outside the kitchen, his left side visible, and his head peeking out.

"Can't a guy be alone for fifteen minutes?" he asked tensely, and I faltered.

"Well..."

"Look, no knives." He held his hands up in the doorway for me to see, his right visible over his head.

I rolled my eyes. "Fine, but I want you to be in prime condition when I come to get you. And don't leave the apartment."

"Wouldn't dream of it," he winked, and slipped out of sight.

I was on my way towards the bedroom, fiddling with the buttons on my pyjama top when I heard the bathroom door slide shut and lock. Ah well, it didn't matter. I had removed all the sharp objects in there the night before. Unless he tried to use the cupboard to harm himself I was safe.

And if he _did_ try the cupboard I would hear it.

Plus, I had unfastened the lock so that I could just pull it in if I thought something dodgy was going on. Oh, yes. My home was suicidal dunce protected.

G.G.G.

"You actually want to see this?" I asked sceptically, holding the cover of _Pride and Prejudice_ in my hand.

"Yep," Hiro answered easily, flicking through a row of movies on the display in front of us. "I've heard that there are hot bits in that one."

"Kiera Knightley is in the other one," I informed him, trying to put the DVD back on the shelf above.

Hiro's hand took hold of my wrist, stopping the action. He gave me a smug smirk, eyes twinkling. "I _meant_ Colin Firth."

"Oh," I said weakly, just staring as Hiro snatched the film out of my hand and put it in the trolley—right on top of the tomatoes—and started off towards the cashier queues.

G.G.G.

"I am so bored." It wasn't even fulfilling to say it even more. Every ounce of energy or will to do anything had seeped out of me, leaving this humanoid K _shell_ that was so utterly and completely bored that—what was I saying?

"Shh, this is one of those climax moments. She's going to read the letter and know he's not a dreadful cold fish," Hiro shushed me, his eyes glued to the television.

I glared at him out of the corner of my eye. "I'm never letting you have coffee again."

He tossed a handful of crisps at me and I pouted as a few got stuck in my hair. I was so booored. In lack of anything else to do, I repeated myself. "I'm never letting you have coffee again."

"You're just saying that," he countered, poking me in the thigh with his toes, "I'll just look at you sadly and blink with my pretty long lashes and you'll be rushing down to the store to buy some."

"Would not," I muttered, trying not to admit to myself that I bloody well _would_.

I was tired and achy and bored. So bored. At least when I watch these things with Judy she lets me feel her up. Right then I was obliged to stay, and I didn't think Hiro would find it very amusing if I started to grab his assets. Even though they are very nice assets.

...What is wrong with me?

It had to be the boredom speaking. Must be. I'd have liked more coffee, but then I wouldn't have been able to sleep later. Must prevail. Had to make it through. There was only one hour left anyway... I hoped... possibly two... three... fifteen.

"Why won't you tell me what's wrong?" I asked petulantly, nudging the bottles on the table with my foot.

Hiro turned to look at me with a surprised expression on his face. "I thought you were watching," he said through a mouthful of crisps.

I was watching! ...Besides from the fact that I wasn't really looking at the TV-set as much as the dust bunnies beneath the bookshelf. Cleaning is not my forte!

"I don't mean the movie. I've seen enough of it already."

"There's nothing wrong," he lied, face neutral, and turned to look at the TV again.

"Why are you miserable?" I insisted, not taking my eyes off him.

He was silent for several minutes during which I thought I heard the word 'abominable' uttered three times. "Just let it go, K. You can't do anything about it, alright?"

"Isn't it better if I'm the judge of that?" I said darkly.

He sighed. "This is something I have to deal with myself."

"Well, you're _not_ dealing with it!"

"Am too," he mumbled, eyes lowered.

"Slashing your arms open does _not_ constitute as _dealing with it_!" I exclaimed, grabbing my gun and pulling it out of the holster, "Why won't you just tell me?"

I never thought he'd react like that to me pulling a gun at him. It has happened countless times before. It's not an uncommon occurrence! But he didn't just wave it off as he normally would, no, he started laughing. Laughing. Though, not an amused laugh or an evil laugh or something I could recognise, no. It was a cold laughter. Hollow. Broken. With a hysterical undertone and something that I thought might be tears.

"Oh God," he whimpered, slapping a hand over his mouth and practically flew out of the couch and sprinted towards the bathroom.

For a moment I thought he had run in there to retch, but when he locked the door and nothing could be heard from the other side I wondered just _how_ tactless that had been.

_Very_ tactless.

I had just threatened to shoot a suicidal man.

Damning my own idiocy I climbed out of the couch and made my way to the bathroom door, listening for a moment before knocking.

"Hiro?" I said weakly, "Hiro, I'm sorry."

"Go away," was his choked reply from the other side of the door.

"Hiro, open the door."

No answer.

"Either you open the door or I will."

Still silence. I waited awhile to get some indication that he was going to open, but when none came I set to work at prying at the lock. It was still fastened harder than was strictly necessary, but I was able to get the door open after just a few tries.

What I found inside wasn't at all what I had feared, but I still didn't have a clue as to how to handle it. Hiro was curled up on the floor next to the toilet, face turned away from me.

"Figures that Yuji was right," he muttered thickly, burrowing his face into his knees.

I stepped closer, kneeling down in front of him.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to..." the words died in my mouth, and just sat there looking at him, seeing his body shake occasionally. I sighed and crept a bit closer, putting my hand on his back and rubbing it up and down soothingly.

He didn't acknowledge my touch at first, but I moved closer, putting my arm around him, and eventually he uncurled slightly, leaning his head against my shoulder.

Tears were glistening on his face, cheeks shining in the blaring white light from the fluorescent light over the mirror. He gave little sniffs now and then, his breaths coming in short gasps through his mouth.

He tilted his head up to look at me, and I could see the unshed tears glistening in his eyes, his lashes clinging together wetly. The skin around his eyes had reddened, and his disheveled hair was tickling my neck.

"I suppose I should tell you then. Since you really want to know," he said in a mellow tone, almost as if he was ashamed.

I closed my eyes and shook my head. "Don't."

It wasn't like in those stories, that I _felt_ his eyes on me, but I knew that he was looking for a long while before he shifted his gaze away, turning his face into my shoulder. I don't know how long we sat there, his hands clutching and scrunching the fabric at the front of my shirt, his tears wetting my shoulder, but I continued to hold him through the horrible end credits music.

G.G.G.

I know I've been sagging off with the review responses, but I promise that I will answer as soon as I get it this time and not wait until I forget which ones I've answered and which ones I haven't. don't forget to comment. oh, and I don't like this chapter. can you tell?


	22. Group Picture

Summary: Hiro's view of things :)  
Warning: If you didn't notice it in the previous chapter then you certainly will now ;)

G.G.G.

I have never felt more disgusting than I did when K picked me up from the hospital. I hadn't shaved, showered or changed clothes in _days_, and my arm was itching, both from the fact that there were fresh wounds beneath the bandaging, and because I felt guilty.

I could not deny the fact that I had tried to take my own life. Accidentally or not, that's what I had done, and I had to live with it. Having to stay with him, _alone_ in _his apartment_ did not make things better. It was uncomfortable, and I didn't want him to look at me, to see the wreck I'd become. When we got to his place he offered me a beer and stilted conversation, informing me that the tour was still on, and that I would be under his supervision until we got to America. I wanted to disappear right then, make the shame and pain of seeing him go away. But most of all I wanted a shower.

My wish was granted after a few minutes which just _would not end_, and as he set up the beds and cleaned up—I presume he was cleaning up, I've never expected K to be the kind of man who keeps his home in order—I went to the bathroom, my toiletries kit in hand.

It was heaven stepping in beneath the hot spray of water, and I stood there for a few long moments, just letting the water hit and slide over my face, letting it wash away the lingering traces of tears, sweat and grime. I had removed the elastic gauze from my arm before I stepped into the shower, and I ran my fingers lightly over the still red cuts, already beginning to scab over, tracing the odd pattern almost as if enchanted. It felt surreal, that I had inflicted pain upon myself, and that it had given me such release. It almost made me want—

No. Shaking my head I pulled my hand away, concentrating on the task of getting myself clean. My hair felt so gritty that I pulled a face when my fingers slid through the wet tresses. How had I lived like this for the past week? I grabbed the shampoo-bottle in the little basket fastened to the wall of the shower, squeezing out a healthy amount in my hand. It was K's shampoo, as I had found my hygiene kit depressingly shampoo- and conditioner-less.

When I was finished I felt enormously refreshed and much better than I had in days. I found a plugged-in blow-drier next to the sink, and I smirked a little, finding it amusing that K, the most masculine man in my surroundings, used a blow-drier on such a frequent basis that he didn't pull it out of the socket. Apparently his hair was more important than the risk of having electronics and water in such close vicinity. I pulled on a pair of boxers, dried my hair and shaved, brushed my teeth and then wound the gauze around my arm again, finding it slightly ironic that by cutting myself I had unwittingly fallen into a burgeoning fashion clique. I'd fit right in with the manga kids.

Taking one final critical look at myself in the mirror, I decided that pulling on a t-shirt would be most profitable in the situation. I looked dreadful even after the shower, thinner than ever and with a bandage around my arm. I needed clothes to support me against how uncomfortable I felt around K. Strange thing, that. Finding solace in clothes. Comfort clothes.

When I approached the bedroom door I could hear slams and thumps coming from the room, and I decided to wait outside until he was done, fearing the hazard I might be swept into if I dared enter the room. After a while he came bursting through the door, almost slamming into me, but stopping at the very last moment, his face mere inches from mine.It was startling, having him so close, I could feel the heat radiating from his body even though we weren't touching, his eyes startlingly blue in his honest eager face, lips pink and slightly flushed.

My stomach dropped, and for awhile I fervently wished that he'd take that last step and kiss me, but he didn't. Instead he looked at me, silently, pensively. I gathered myself together, forced a "Goodnight," over my lips, hoping that my voice wouldn't shake with suppressed emotion, and made my way into the room, ducking beneath his arm.

When in there I quickly made my way to the bed, curling up beneath the covers, trying to ignore the ache that had reestablished itself in my chest, trying not to notice that his scent was surrounding me, was etched into my own hair and body.

I slipped into sleep eventually, but even in my dreams he was all around me, a phantom body leaning over mine, touching me lightly, lovingly, soft lips pressed to my temple. It was a sweet dream, and it lingered in my mind even as I woke the next day, its peaceful warmth making me feel both happy and lonely at once.

K was sleeping deeply when I rose in the morning, his body turned away from me. He was snoring slightly, and his hair had flopped over his face, successfully obstructing it from view. The night's dream still lingered in my mind, but I quenched the urge to curl up next to him, and instead grabbed some clothes from my bag and set off to the bathroom to get dressed.

The white floor tiles were cold beneath my feet and I shivered as I pulled my pyjamas off. I studiously avoided the mirror until I had gotten new clothes on, but even when only my face and arms were visible I still looked hideous. Dark imprints around my eyes from lack of sleep, hair reminiscent of that of Einstein, and an expression which would have better befitted a zombie.

I sighed. At least I could do something about the hair. I hadn't thought to bring my own brush when I grabbed a few clothes at random, but K's brush lay silently—like brushes do—in it's place on the shelf. I brushed my tousled tresses quickly, pulling slightly harder than was strictly necessary. A meek way of punishing myself for being an idiot, but there you go.

I rummaged around in the cupboard under the sink until I found some fresh elastic gauze, then I took the bandage off my arm, cleaned the wounds and wrapped it again with the new gauze. I regretted it afterwards, when the wounds started to itch, but there was nothing I could to about it. I stared at the mirror for awhile, trying to figure out what people saw in me. My face was half-hidden behind a curtain of hair, so I pulled it back, baring my left eye, cheeks and ears to view. I looked too... flat somehow. I turned, gazing at my semi-profile, and then I winced. My nose looked odd from this angle.

Nothing. It was useless. There was nothing there. Nothing remarkable, nothing noteworthy, nothing to admire or envy. I wasn't _pretty_. The word almost seemed like a parody when I tried to apply it to my own appearance. Such a girly word. I wasn't smooth lines and curves, I was gangly limbs and hard angles. Then again, I needn't bother. The only person I wanted to look at me with approval would never notice. It didn't matter that I was damaged, that I was wrecked, that I was the ghost of the person people assumed me to be. He wouldn't care.

I combed my fingers through my hair a few times, gathering it up in my hand at my neck. It wasn't going to get any better than this. Why bother? I let go, and my hair fell back around my face, a red curtain, covering the dreaded sight once more.

The red curtain.

I swiftly turned away and exited through the door.

End scene, act, play.

G.G.G.

I didn't feel like eating. My stomach was acting as though it was of the opinion that I was still sleeping. I didn't mind. I made coffee though, a lot of it. I didn't think much about it, I just drank cup after cup, the bitter taste suiting my mood just fine. I spent a moment pondering the effects it would have to drink such a vast amount of coffee—aside from the need to visit the bathroom—but I decided that being hyperactive would be positive in this particular situation. If I was hyperactive then at least I wasn't depressed. A silly Hiro would be better than a suicidal one.

When K eventually staggered into the kitchen with a hand over his eyes, I had drunk almost all the coffee I had brewed—which was also all the coffee I had been able to find. Of course, when K found out that he was out of coffee he pitched a fit, and proceeded to relieve me of my last cup.

However, I wouldn't give it up willingly, so to my utmost terror—or utmost delight—he leaned over the back of the chair I was sitting in and drank out of the mug while I was still holding it. It was... very unnerving to say the least. His eyes fluttered closed, his skin flushed, his adam's apple bobbed as he swallowed, and all happening inches in front of my face. He was so close I could _smell_ him. So close that if I had had the presence of mind to I could have counted his eyelashes.

Add to this that K is a very attractive man and that I am stupidly and hopelessly in love with him. I got turned on.

It was all horribly embarrassing. When he had drank it all and pulled away I rose and went over to the sink to deposit the cup, then I tried to make my way out of the kitchen without making my _condition_ obvious to him.

I was almost out of the kitchen, had just passed the doorway when he asked me where I was going. I panicked for a second,wondering what in the world I was going to do. I couldn't turn around. I just could not turn around. I moved over towards the wall and turned around behind it, hiding most of my body except for my left side and my head. It wasn't a very good situation. He was looking adorably scruffy and ruffled in his pyjamas, the wide collar had slipped down to show quite a lot of his right shoulder.

I managed to negotiate fifteen minutes of solitude in the bathroom, which were spent _very well indeed_, and I came out of there again feeling like I had avoided having the sky fall down on me.

We went to the store to buy coffee beans once he'd gotten dressed, and through my amazing convincing skills—or perhaps just the fact that I managed to stun K into immobility—I managed to get him to buy _Pride and Prejudice_, which we started watching after dinner (tomato-soup with shrimps), or rather, _I_ started watching it while K stared intently at, well, everything else.

Eventually he got so frustrated with boredom that he started interrogating me about the _event_ again. From there it went completely downhill, ending in him pulling his gun at me and I broke down completely and had to run to the bathroom to avoid showing him my tears. I locked the door and curled up on the floor next to the toilet, trying to ignore K's attempts to get me to let him in.

He got in somehow, of course, probably destroyed the lock beforehand "just in case", the conniving arse that he is. This was what I didn't want to happen, I didn't want him to see. I turned my face away, but to no avail. He sat down beside me and pulled me towards him. It was useless to try and shy away from him. He would only come looking for me again. Doing his _job_.

That hurt most of all: the fact that if he hadn't been obligated to he wouldn't be here, wouldn't be holding me, trying to comfort me. It made me cry harder, and even as I hated the reason why he was there, I couldn't stop myself from being relieved that he was. I came so close to telling him then, it was at the tip of my tongue, ready to just spill out, but he stopped me. Decided he wasn't to know after all.

And somewhere deep within myself I knew that it was for the best. But that fact did not stop the tears. I curled against him, spilling my tears onto his shoulder, his arms surrounding me, cradling me, holding me close. My hands clenched in the fabric of his shirt, in my thoughts I was willing the moment not to end, willing the tears to keep falling, because as long as I had tears I had K this close, and it was worth more tears than I knew myself capable of spilling.

All good things (or merely all things) come to an end, and when I curled up in K's bed that night the bed seemed somehow colder and more empty than the night before.

G.G.G.

The last day before we were flying abroad to continue the tour was filled with chaos. After gathering a lot of his own things, K took me over to my place to pack all my things up. I was relieved to see that the blood had been cleaned up from the floor in front of the couch, but there were dark brown smudges on the carpet. I was glad that I didn't have time to simply walk around in there, reliving my days of misery that I'd spent there less than a week ago.

I wasn't sure if I could even continue living there when we came back from the tour.

We left as soon as I had packed everything that was on K's list and that I could remember, after which we made our way to Yuki's apartment to help Shuichi pack. When we arrived Shuichi was in tears and Yuki was chain smoking in the living room.

K decided to start packing immediately and worry about silly things as emotions later, so while he was bustling about, flinging Shuichi's things into his bags, I set to try and calm my sobbing friend down. Yuki glared at us for being so noisy until he eventually got bored, muttered something about lunch and disappeared into the kitchen.

Several frantic hours later Shuichi was packed and ready, had reconciled with the fact that he was going to be Yuki-less for a month, and K and I were knocking on Suguru's door. He smiled his little bemused smile at the sight of us, invited us in and offered us steaming tea in neat little patterned cups.

He had of course already finished packing, and everything he had not yet placed neatly into his travel case was placed in straight piles on his dining table.

We chatted amicably for an hour or two, but when I accidentally banged my forehead on the table when I fell asleep, K decided it would be better if we went back to his place and slept for a few hours. Before anybody hurt themselves. Thus it was with Shuichi's tortured sobs still ringing in my ears that I fell asleep the night before we were taking off toward new horizons.

G.G.G.

It's sometimes surprising how quickly information travels. It was quite late when we arrived in Los Angeles, the time difference announcing it's existence rather vigorously. We were quickly ushered through the airport and checked into a nearby hotel, followed by a horde of flashing cameras and eager questioning voices.

I was relieved to finally be alone in the hotel room after the several hours on the plane, though I wouldn't be for very long. K was going to share with me—he had informed me in a rumbling mumble as we made our way through the well-lit tax-free shopping area—since Kenny had been sent ahead to the 'camp' where the trailers were set up to check that the security measures were in order. I had shrugged it off. We were going to camp in the morning. One more night in K's company wouldn't make such a big difference, surely.

I was sitting in one of the stuffy armchairs in the room, leafing through the evening edition of a celebrity gossip 'zine when I came upon a picture of myself from that very morning.

We had all lined up for a press photo before we were to get on the plane, K hovering at my shoulder like some kind of menacing avenger who would eliminate anybody who even dared approach. However, this had not detained the reporters. They had stood back while the photos were taken, microphones clutched in their hands, but ready to start sprouting questions as soon as the end of the photo shoot was announced.

Apparently the photo session was planned, because we had all been ordered to wear striped black suits with a matching tie, and there was a clear spot arranged in front of the plane. Shuichi was positively giddy, and had dragged a scowling Yuki with him for one of the photos.

"How much will you miss me?" he had asked, sneaking his arms around Yuki and smiling to the cameras.

"About as much as I miss the garbage retrieval man." Yuki had responded, trying to pry Shuichi's hand away from his posterior, heedless of the camera flashes.

It had been very hot in the suit, and I had felt uncomfortable as the unyielding sun beat down on us, making my hair feel like a cocoon of heat. Dizzy and unfocused I had pulled my hair away from my face, with my left hand trying to scoop it over to my left shoulder. At that precise moment a flash had gone off, and I was currently staring at the result.

The picture covered a quarter of the page, in colour, right below a picture of all of Bad Luck standing in a Charlie's Angels pose. My head was tilted slightly to the left, my hand right at the back of my head, the arm of the suit jacket had slipped down towards my elbow, and my bandaged forearm was exposed to view. My mouth was slightly open, and my eyes looked dark. I looked positively... wanton.

And positively idiotic. I scowled. They'd probably done something to it anyway. I didn't look like that. My lips weren't that red. I huffed and turned the page, ready to forget everything about that damned photo shoot and all the awkwardness it had brought with it.

However, that proved more easily thought than done. On the next fold-up there was an even larger picture where I was once again displayed for everybody and their aunt to see. The picture was—if possible—even worse than the previous one. I hadn't even been aware of it being taken. It was of me and K, right after the shoot had ended when he had pulled me around to face him and ask me if I was okay.

His arm was around me, his hand resting at the small of my back. The wind had picked up and was pulling at our clothes and hair. We were smiling, eyes glinting in the sun, and standing far too close than what seemed proper. Strange. It hadn't seemed so close at the time. Especially not when taking into account what had been said.

"Are you alright? You were swaying there for a bit." His voice had been low and warm, balm to my strained nerves.

"Yeah, fine," I had said, forcing the fake smile onto my face again, "Got a bit dizzy is all."

He looked at me skeptically for a second before nodding and giving me a reassuring smile. "Okay. Wave at your fans and get on the plane."

I had turned toward the crowd as his hand slipped away, and as I backed up towards the plane, waving lightly to the most obvious fans, Suguru caught up with me, giving me a saucy wink.

"Come on Hiro," he had smiled, grabbing a hold of my elbow and pulling me up the stairs to the plane, "We're going to America."

I felt the magazine slipping in my fingers and clenched the glossy paper tighter. The photographer had captured the exact moment where K smiled at me, from an angle that made it look like... like we were going to kiss at any second.

I closed my eyes and swallowed, willing away the wish that it had been K's true intent. Willing away the image of him leaning closer, eyes searching my face before our lips—

I looked up as the door opened and K peered inside, spotted me, nodded in greeting and came inside. I slumped back against the armchair, my head lolling back against the top of the backrest. The door shut with a click.

"Tired?" He asked, voice decidedly closer than at the door on the other side of the room.

I grunted noncommittally, arms falling down to rest against my thighs. The arm of the armchair dipped slightly, and when he spoke next his voice came from above my head.

"What's that?"

I opened my eyes to see his face right above me. He was looking down at the magazine displayed in my lap, and smiling. The moment I realised just what he was looking at I slammed the magazine together, the paper crinkling in my hands.

I stood quickly, crossing my arms, shoving the magazine behind my arm and out of sight.

"Nothing," I said hurriedly, looking anywhere but his face—and arms and neck and legs and hands and feet and collarbones shadowed beneath his semi-unbuttoned shirt—I just knew it would eventually drive me insane.

He sighed. "Photo shoot equals photos equals your face in the paper." He stretched out a hand demandingly. "Give it here."

"I look like an idiot anyway, I don't get why people would want to look at it," I huffed, reluctantly passing him the magazine. I didn't want to, but he would have questioned it even more if I tried to keep it from him. At least this way I could keep _some_ semblance of... dignity?

He flipped through the wrinkled pages until he came to the picture where I was pushing away my hair. He stared at it for several long moments before turning his face up towards me. He almost looked a bit stricken.

"You don't look like an idiot, you look—" he paused, swallowed, "The girls will love it."

I felt myself flush, and shifted my gaze away from him once more. "I'm going to have a shower," I mumbled and hurried over to the bathroom.

Well in there I stripped quickly and stepped beneath the hot shower spray.

I stood there until my fingers were wrinkly and the water spilling over my face was no longer mixed with tears.

G.G.G.

a/n: hope you liked :)


	23. Therapy

Summary: Hiro has to go to the therapist.  
Warning: Nothing really. Some fangirling maybe XD

G.G.G.

Hiro smiled grimly, staring up at the patterned ceiling. It was painted in pastels, shaped in different geometrical figures. He supposed it was relaxing enough. Though, one yellow shape near the right wall looked like a duck.

"Right, so, how do we do this?" he said in English, studiously avoiding looking at the quite young therapist, who was sitting in the chair adjacent to the two-seat sofa.

"Well, Hi-ro-shi," she said exaggeratedly slowly, pronouncing every syllable like it was some odd type of food she hadn't tasted before, and wasn't sure whether she should like it or not, "You could perhaps start by telling me a little about yourself?"

Her voice was far too cheery for Hiro's mood, and he supposed her face was still glowing with the faint blush which had spread over her cheeks as they had shaken hands. He was sure that had it been able to, the glittering in her eyes would have been reflected on the walls. She was far too enthusiastic about the meeting for someone who didn't know anything about him.

"I like beer," he offered reluctantly, trying to postpone the inevitable. K wouldn't let him out of this room until he had spilled his heart to this woman, and she had given him her professional opinion. Like that was going to help Hiro get over his 'trauma'. His trauma which was a living, breathing, walking, talking, menace of a man who he would have to stay with _alone_ for yet _another_ night, and every other night after that, because they were simply _never_ going to leave Los Angeles. They might as well give up on the tour if autograph signings and unplanned therapy sessions were to continue.

"Oh," Hiro heard fabric rubbing together as she wriggled in the armchair, "I meant something a little more, let's say, _personal_ than that."

Hiro sighed and drummed his fingers against his chest for a moment before sitting up and turning on the sofa so that they came to face each other. He gazed at her dully and she smiled nervously, fiddling with the pen in her hands.

"Look," damnit. He couldn't for the life of him remember her name. Stupid NG. Stupid Tohma sending him off to a _brainshrinker_. Stupid manager. Stupid everything. "You don't have to pretend to have trouble saying my name. You're blushing too much to make me believe that you would."

Her blush deepened, and she opened her mouth to say something, but seemed to change her mind, and simply nodded instead, looking down at her lap, clutching the notepad with whitening fingers. Great. He hadn't meant to unsettle her or make her embarrassed. This was _not going well_.

"I'm not getting out of here until I tell you what's 'wrong with me', and you can tell the annoying blond guy who I am sure is listening by the door, that I am _fine_. So, I'll just tell you what you need to know."

The therapist let out a breath with an exasperated-looking smile, rolling her eyes before looking back at him. "Alright. You talk, I'll listen. It was in the original plan, but I guess your version works too. Shoot."

Hiro's grin came unbidden. "I sure hope he didn't hear that, because he might actually do it."

The therapist frowned. "Do what?"

"Shoot," he said, shrugging, leaning back in the couch to lie down again, but this time facing the woman. The duck looked more like a strange yellow crocodile from this way. He wriggled a little, finding a comfortable position on the quite firm couch.

"I have an obligation to observe silence. Anything you tell me stays between us." She turned the page in her notepad, and flattened the paper out with her fingers.

_And the person with expensive listening devices on the other side of the door_, Hiro added silently. "Right. Okay. So, the main thing is," he started, eyes skimming over the pastels, "I'm in love."

"Not a very uncommon occurrence, I assure you," the therapist smiled genuinely.

Hiro's mouth curled. "I guess not," he conceded, tilting his head to the side, "But I think it's a bit different. At least a little. I've been around this... _person_ for a very long time, meeting them almost every day, talking to each other over the phone most days we don't meet. I didn't notice it myself at first, because I had a girlfriend and was trying to focus on getting my life to work out... And then, all of a sudden, I was in love."

"You said 'person'," the therapist interrupted, scribbling on her notepad, "How shall I interpret that?"

"Any way you like," Hiro answered, glancing at her neat and orderly appearance for a moment. "As I was saying, I was in love, and eventually my girlfriend found out. She broke up with me. I guess that's when it started. I could ignore it for as long as I had Ayaka. I really liked her. She was a fantastic person. Beautiful, funny, caring. She didn't want to be in the way of my happiness, I suppose, but I felt like I was going to go insane when she left me. She kept me in place. And I did love her, I _do_ love her, just... Not enough."

"So you were willing to deceive your girlfriend before she found out?"

Hiro sighed. "No. I told her myself. Of course, she had noticed that something was wrong, but she didn't know what. I suppose I expected her to break up with me once she knew, but I never thought that not having her around would hit me so hard. When she was gone there was just... the _person_ left, and that didn't work out too well. You know, unrequited love—and all that jazz."

"Random reference to _Chicago_," the therapist mumbled, writing frantically in her notepad.

"It was like oxygen, that love. It grew steadily every day, and I didn't know what to do to stop it—I still don't know. I don't know if I want it to go away. I don't know if I could live without it. It was like a little promise every day, just to know that I was going to see the person and feel so exuberantly happy simply from being around them... it's exhilarating, wonderful. It actually felt like there were butterflies in my stomach whenever they would smile at me, or touch me." Hiro ran his hand through his hair, biting his lip. "Have you ever been in love?"

She looked up, expression slightly startled. "Me?"

Hiro looked around the room as if trying to see any other people in there, but as expected, it was empty. "Yeah."

"Oh. I—I suppose." She flushed.

Hiro smirked. "Celebrity crushes don't count."

She glanced at him, taking a deep breath. "Yes. Yes I have."

"Madly, shout over the rooftops, 'without you life isn't worth living' in love?" Hiro pressed on.

"You know," she stalled, "This is your session, not mine."

"I know, I was just trying to make it a bit interesting for me too."

She just smiled, shaking her head, and indicated with her hand for him to continue.

"There's not much left to tell, really. I saw the person with someone else, and then we didn't see each other for some time. I was miserable," he shrugged, "so I tried to make myself feel better."

"By cutting yourself?"

"Yep," he answered lightly, suddenly not feeling at all up to telling her any more. It had been _his_ moment, his only peace of mind these last few months, his only release, his only freedom. But no matter how reluctant he was, he had to. "It was amazing. I'd never felt anything like that before. I was in complete control over everything I was feeling. I _chose_ it, it didn't just happen to me." He paused, gathering his thoughts, trying to shape them into words. "I got too caught up in it. Before I even knew it, I had gone too far. I thought I was going to die." He swallowed against the sudden thickness in his throat. "I thought it would be for the best, all things considered." He fell silent.

"And then what happened?" the therapist asked softly, solemnly.

Hiro's eyes pricked, and he blinked, wetness slipping down to slide over his cheeks. He cleared his throat. "I woke up at the hospital. I was taken into... I don't know what to call it. 'Protective custody', I guess. The record company doesn't trust me enough to let me be alone. And now I'm here."

"How did it feel _exactly_ when you were cutting yourself?"

Hiro took a deep breath, wiping his cheeks with his hands. He didn't look at her. "It was like ice and fire all at once, and I... I felt... It was—" he choked, squeezing his eyes shut to try and make the tears stop falling.

The door opened, and K's voice floated into the room. "That's enough."

Hiro buried his face in his hands, trying to hide from K's searching gaze. It was a futile attempt. It wasn't as though he could sink through the floor, or run away. K would always find him. It was easier to just give up.

The cushion beside him dipped, and K's arms wrapped around him, pulling him close to K's warm firm chest. He didn't fight it. Didn't protest. He just tilted his face into K's neck and let his tears spill over the other man's skin. "You ass," he whispered in Japanese, "I _knew_ you were listening."

"Of course I was. It's impossible for me to not get involved in other people's business," he mumbled into Hiro's hair, his hands moving comfortingly over Hiro's back. "Everything is going to work out just fine. You just have to give it some time."

Hiro sniffled, K's warm scent surrounding him. His right hand had curled in the loose tail of K's untucked shirt, scrunching up the fabric and baring a sliver of K's stomach. K shifted slightly, and Hiro's knuckles brushed against the warm smooth skin.

Hiro shivered and pulled away, rubbing his eyes vigorously. He looked up at the therapist, who he had just remembered was still in the room. It was almost frightening what being around K did to him. He had gotten so enchanted that he had forgotten that the person who was to decide if he could be left on his own at _all_ for an indeterminable amount of time was sitting only a few feet away, in full view of everything that was happening. Though, he supposed she didn't know what they had said since he'd been told she didn't speak Japanese.

What he saw in her face did not reassure him at all. She was wearing a curious smirk, and the light of realisation in her eyes was almost blinding. K's hand was still resting on Hiro's back, warm and heavy.

"Mr Winchester," she said, sounding awfully smug, "I have thought of the perfect course of action for this particular case."

"Which is, Ms Johnson?" K asked, voice neutral.

"You two—" She pointed at them with her pen, "—Should be in close proximity to each other."

Utter silence reigned for a moment before two voices tried to make themselves heard at once. Hiro's exclamation of "_What_?", and K's more measured question "How come?"

The therapist—Ms Johnson—held up her hands in a calming motion. "You two are very compatible. I think it would be most fortunate for the both of you to not be separated."

Hiro's eyes widened, and he shook his head almost imperceptibly. "Can I speak to you?" He asked, trying to keep his voice steady, "Outside?"

"Of course," Ms Johnson answered, getting to her feet, tucking a stray lock of hair back into the neat bun at the back of her head. She went into the lobby ahead of Hiro, waiting for him to get up from the couch and walk out before she closed the door, leaving K alone in the room.

"Are you insane?" Hiro whispered, staring at her incredulously, "You can't do that to me. You can't make me—" he cut himself off, wincing.

"You love him, don't you?" Her voice was steady, and far too loud in Hiro's opinion.

He closed his eyes, breathing out the answer rather than saying it. "Yes."

"Then I don't see what the problem is," she said impatiently, "You are good for each other."

"But he's _married_!" Hiro hissed in a furious whisper.

She tilted her head, her glasses flashing in the light of the lamp overhead, "Does it look like I care? Does it look like _he_ cares?" She balled her hand into a loose fist and gave Hiro a light punch on the side of his overarm. "Go get him, Tiger," she grinned, "Now, if you'll excuse me, I have an evaluation to report."

"You won't tell him that I..."

"Obligation to observe silence," she interrupted him, "I won't tell a soul." She smiled sweetly, then slipped into the other room again, the door sliding shut behind her with a distinct click.

Hiro stood stunned for a few seconds, then he crept closer to the door, checking around him that the lobby was empty before he put his ear against the door to listen.

"There is nothing _wrong_ with him, Mr Winchester," Hiro heard Ms Johnson say, "He has problems. Just like everybody else."

"Then what are his _problems_?" Sounded K's frustrated voice, muffled through the door.

"He only needs some reassurance. I hope that I am right in my evaluation that _you_ can provide him with that reassurance."

K mumbled something incoherent, and then Ms Johnson started speaking again. "He is very determined, but he also cares about other people. He seems to be a wonderful young man. Slightly on the bossy side, admittedly, but I've heard that they make exceptional bedpartners."

"That's it?"

"Indeed."

"You're not going to... Never mind. Goodbye."

"Good day, Mr Winchester. Just take care of him, and everything will be fine."

K's steps were coming closer, and Hiro backed away from the door before it opened.

K appeared, looking slightly aggravated. "Come on, Hiro. Time to go." He walked right through the lobby without even looking at Hiro, and disappeared through the entrance. Exchanging a last smile with Ms Johnson, Hiro slipped out the door after him.

G.G.G.

tbc.


	24. Newspaper

Summary: K is not happy. K reads an article. K pitches a fit, but not so much, because that's for the next chapter.  
Notes: I hope the article sounds stupid enough. I've been working on it a LOT to get it that way :P and my pretty layout doesn't work on this site. :(

G.G.G.

K slammed the door to the hotelroom shut. Hiro wasn't with him, as he had gone to visit Shuichi, probably sensing K's bad mood. It wasn't very hard to sense, though. It was rather blatantly obvious, what with his growling and scowling and telling people off for not moving out of his way quickly enough.

No wonder Hiro had looked at him like a terrified kitten and run off at first chance. K was seriously pissed off. He wasn't even sure why he was so angry. Something Ms Johnson had said had just rubbed him the wrong way.

It wasn't _what_ she had said exactly, K didn't think, but rather _how_ she had said it. He didn't mind helping Hiro. In actuality, he found it a relief that he was supposed to keep such close track of him. It would have been much harder to do if it wasn't part of his job. And much more difficult to excuse to himself.

Ms Johnson had unnerved him. She had looked at him like she knew something about him that he wasn't sure he was comfortable with her knowing. He wasn't even certain he himself knew what it was.

K sighed and leaned against the door, tilting his head back to connect with the wood with a dull thump. He didn't know what to think anymore. His mind was one great jumbled mess of events, plans, dates, people, shippings and payments. He had to keep track of everyone and everything. He had to make sure that Bad Luck had everything they wanted, he had to make sure that everything went according to plan. He had to see through every possible glitch and cover it up. He worked too much and slept far too little. Given, he had Ekihu. Good old reliable Ekihu who always managed to get things done. Still, all the responsibility was wearing K down, tearing at him until he felt so detached that he did things almost mechanically.

Arguing with the florist. Check. Calling Tohma. Check. Making sure all the equipment was safely stored. Check. Keeping track of the band members. Er-Check. Double check. Recheck. Double double check. Holding the paparazzi at bay. Endless check. Getting called by Tohma. Check. Providing Shuichi with enough Pocky to stuff it in his ears and walk around all day pretending to be Frankenstein's monster. Check. Looking for hidden bugging equipment in the hotelrooms. Threatening the bribed bell-boy. Choking the chef. Check, check, check.

Having to worry incessantly about Hiro, and then Ms Johnson's imploring looks had been the final straw. He'd snapped, and spectacularly at that. This wasn't how he was supposed to be. He was calm and collected, the person who knew exactly what to do in any situation he found himself in. And yet, here he was, trying to help a troubled band member, and having no idea what to do. The stress of it all was eating him, and the reality of what Hiro might do to himself if he was ever left alone loomed like a dark cloud at the back of his mind at all times.

He needed to calm down, cool off. He needed some time for _himself_ for once. They were going to stop by his home for a few days during the tour, but that was two weeks off, and his reaction to the day's events spoke of a need of immediate action.

He lumbered over to one of the armchairs, gratefully slumping into the soft padding. He needed a smoke, a bath, and sleep. However, he was loathed to move. It could wait a while, surely? He stretched his body a little, feeling the chinks in his back crack ominously. He let his head loll to the side, staring up at the ceiling. Fantastic. He was already bored.

He still didn't want to move. He glanced around the room, spotting a few newspapers on the coffeetable. He picked the top one up, flipping it open and resting it in his lap. He leafed through it disinterestedly, his eyes moving over dull grey pictures and small text, barely noticing what he was seeing. Then—

A headline. For a moment he just stared. Then he remembered to blink. Then he stared some more.

"Hiroshi Nakano—Gone With The Wind?"

Finally, K shook himself and started reading the article. It wasn't very long.

_'Love sickness? That seems to be what the Bad Luck guitarist Hiroshi Nakano is suffering from. His suicide attempt during their Japan tour not long ago left the band, crew, N-G record company and all their Japanese fans in shock: "I never thought of Hiroshi as somebody who would attempt to kill himself' says our source, 'he's always such a happy and encouraging person, it's really gobsmacking."_

_But however things look on the surface, beneath the image of the handsome band member there is a tortured soul. Previously, Hiroshi has been seen with a girl called Ayaka Usami, but according to our source they had broken up almost two months before the tour started: "He was talking to their manager, Mr K, when he said that he and Ayaka had broken it off and that he was in love with somebody else." As of yet it has not been specified whom, and the dubious tone of the conversation suggests that it might even be a_ man _that the sought-after musician has fallen for._

_Hiroshi, after having been there for his best friend and fellow band member Shuichi Shindou in his rollercoaster love life with his boyfriend Eiri Yuki (an acknowledged Japanese romance novelist), seems to have fallen into the harsh love trap himself. "It's quite trying to see him in pain like this. He puts on such a brave face to the world, but it's an entirely other reality inside of him," our source states._

_Right now Bad Luck is in America for a US tour that will open in Los Angeles, California. How the band, and foremost Hiroshi himself will cope through another trying tour remains to be seen, but in any event, their fans are eager to support them._

_"We love Hiro," Julie Harrow, the spokesman for the American fanclub says, sipping her milkshake, "And nobody should have to feel depressed and lonely. I know a lot of girls who would like to help first hand," she laughs, "but all we can do really is to show him that we care."_

_How the tour will progress the future will tell, but in the meantime, the fans wish Bad Luck "Good luck."_

_Melinda Floober'_

K slowly released his grip of the magazine, which had become so tight that the paper had torn in places. He gave a pained whimper and scrunched down in the chair. Things just never got better, did they? One thing was already painfully clear to him: people would have to be fired for this.

G.G.G.


	25. Control Freak

Summary: Erm... Vexation and Confusion. Oh, crap, I'm not in a summary mood.  
Warning: Some blood. Not much.  
Notes: Longest chapter. Again :P Dedicated to ANKuma for being so fantastically encouraging.

G.G.G.

We were _finally_ on our way to the "camp" when K broke the news by reading the gruesome article out loud. When I heard the headline I didn't want to believe it. When he came to the bit about my confession, I wanted to sink through the bottom of the car, and by the time he'd gotten to the end, I was blushing and hiding my face in my hands. How humiliating.

"Do you realise what this means?" K asked grimly.

I peeked at the others. Suguru frowned. Sakano's reflection in the rear-view mirror had two noses. Shuichi pouted. "Hiro's... sad?" he said slowly, doubtfully. I winced.

K turned around in the front passenger seat and glared at him. "It _means_ that somebody is leaking information. It _means_ that we are going to have to fire our crew."

Nobody said anything. For a moment I thought that Sakano would have a panic attack, that he was going to accidentally cause a lethal car crash, and these would be the last few seconds of my life. But nothing happened. I leaned forward, trying to catch a glimpse of his expression. I could only see the side of his face. He looked grim, but calm. He had to have known about this beforehand. At least a few hours beforehand if he could drive this well.

"Oh," was Shuichi's weak input a while later.

Suguru was wringing his hands. "Can't we just fire the person who told the press?" He asked slowly.

K shook his head. "They're not going to confess. They signed a contract that they wouldn't utter any information they came in contact with through the job. N-G will sue if they find out who it is. _Nobody_ is going to confess."

"So what do we do?" I asked, feeling more tired than the night of tossing and turning in bed gave me a reason to. "Hire a new crew?"

"This isn't going to work," Sakano mumbled, shaking his head, "We're doomed. Seguchi-san is going to fire me. And then I'm going to live in the gutter because nobody will hire a failure!" His breaths were starting to become laboured.

"Calm down, Sakano," K said, shooting him a worried glance, "Are you sure you're up to driving?"

Sakano's fingers were curled so tightly around the steering wheel that they had turned white. In the mirror I could see his eyes bulging, slightly bloodshot. "I can _do_ this," he said, voice rough.

K gave him a searching gaze, but when Sakano seemed to calm down he spared him of further comment. "Yes, were going to hire another crew," K sighed, but when he continued his tone was harsh, unyielding, "And in the meantime you three will not talk about anything personal in any area where you can be overheard. Am I clear?"

Mumbled assent followed his words. His eyes glinted as he slid back into his seat.

G.G.G.

The people assembled in the cafeteria tent were silent. K stood at the head of the table, his piercing gaze sweeping over the faces of the seated crew members. His expression was grim, and a few people wiggled with unease as his eyes lingered on them.

"Somebody," he said slowly, his voice rumbling throughout the tent, "Has broken their contract."

He started pacing along the table, his steps sounding against the gravel. He seemed almost impossibly taller than usual, straight backed and with an imposing posture. He was... scary. I didn't envy the people gathered around the table, that was for certain.

"I am sure you know what I speak of. Confidential information about the character of Hiroshi Nakano has been revealed to the press. If evidence revealing the person or persons who did it is put forward within one minute no-one else will suffer the consequences. However, if the minute passes without any such information, I will not be lenient." He paused, the silence heavy around the table. He glanced at me where I was sitting in the corner before he checked his watch and resumed his pacing. "The minute starts now. I advice you not to hold your tongues."

The seconds ticked on. The crew members were sending each other dark looks, but nobody said anything. Eventually K broke the silence.

"The time is up. You will all go pack. You are to be gone from these premises in two hours. Failure to oblige will not be tolerated. From this moment on you are no longer NG employees. Good day to you."

The shocked silence that followed made me feel like a complete bastard. They were in a foreign country, and almost all of them had just been sacked because of something they didn't do.

"That's one hour, fifty-nine minutes and twenty seconds now," K said coldly.

At this some of them shot up from their seats, and made their way out of the tent. A few others started to talk in hushed tones, the ice broken, but still lingering.

When all of them had left, K walked up to me, placing his hand on my shoulder.

"Hiro, I—" He looked at me almost pleadingly.

I walked away before he had time to finish.

G.G.G.

I was busy shoving my clothes into the strangely designed closet when K kicked open the door to my trailer and stalked in, cigarette dangling between his lips, the strap of his bag slung over his shoulder.

"You okay?" He asked, closing his index and middle finger around the cigarette, keeping it from falling.

"I'm _fine_," I said briskly, shoving the last few items of clothing into the wardrobe and shutting it quickly before it all fell out. The door was slightly tented in the middle, but it seemed to be staying closed. I released a relieved sigh. Great. Unpacking was over. I turned around to look at the room, trying to dispel the thought that I would have to try and get everything into the closet all over again—when all the clothes came cascading down the next time I was to open it.

"You remember that we agreed that I was going to stay here, right?"

"Yes," I said slowly, rolling my eyes.

"Doctor's orders," he said, much too cheerily for the reaction he had had upon receiving the information.

I closed my eyes. "I know."

"So, where can I put this stuff?"

"Anywhere you like," I said, not really caring, starting to make my way towards the door of the trailer, "I'm sure you can find some nook or cranny somewhere."

"Or a wardrobe?" He added sarcastically. I spun around to see him move the hand holding the cigarette towards the doorhandle.

"_Don't_—," I had time to say, before K pulled the handle, and the bunched up clothes fell out right on top of him. "Open that," I finished lamely.

One of my t-shirts had ended up on his head. "Great," he said, voice flat, "An empty closet."

I sighed, stomped over to him, pulled the t-shirt away from his head, and took the cigarette from his fingers. "Just leave it. I'll pick it up later," I mumbled, shaking my head.

I quickly exited the trailer, turning to lean my back against the wall beside the door. Pulling a long drag of the cigarette, I let my head fall back against the wall with a dull thud.

G.G.G.

Shuichi and I had found a sunny spot between two trailers where we were not-quite-but-still-hiding from K, and the oppressing manner he had sported the entire day since we'd gotten to the camp. I was sprawled lazily on the grass, relaxing, just feeling the sun warming my face, arms, and bare feet. Shuichi was on the phone with Yuki, our discarded shoes lying in a heap next to him.

"Well, _why_ can't I be your cuddlemuffin?" Shuichi asked, sounding a bit put out. I snickered, biting my lip to muffle it. The backs of my eyelids were red and golden. "Yuki, 'Blumbering Idiot' isn't much of an endearment," Shuichi said in his 'I am _not_ amused' tone of voice. I snorted and chuckled, turning my head to the side to squint at Shuichi. "Shut up, Hiro!" He stuck out his tongue at me and poked my arm with his toe.

"What I would like? I would like you to show some appreciation." He pulled at a few straws of grass, making them come loose in his hand before he let them fall back down. "I don't know, learn to can-can, bake me something, teach me that 'flip a coin between your fingers' thing that you always do. Call me on your own volition." He went silent for a while, and I could hear the rumble of Yuki's voice, but I couldn't make out the words.

"Yeah, I know. I just, I miss you." I was starting to feel like I was invading on something private, so I shut my eyes again and tried to focus on the warmth of the sun, the feeling of the grass beneath my feet. "What do you mean 'of _course_'? You're not very good at the romantic stuff, Yuki—"

Shuichi was interrupted halfway through a sentence by K snatching the phone out of his hand and closing it with a snap.

"You hung up on Yuki!" Shuichi gasped, wide-eyed, as if hanging up the phone on Yuki required capital punishment.

I leaned up on my elbows, looking up at K who was hovering over us, looking quite seriously pissed off. "How short attention span do you have, Shuichi? It can't be more than three seconds, because it couldn't have taken more than that when I told you this morning that you weren't to speak about anything private where you could be overheard."

"But I was just talking to Yuki, and—" Shuichi started, leaning away from K as his eyes narrowed.

"No. No excuses. I told you you weren't to do it, but you did it anyway! Don't you have any respect for the fact that I am up to my neck with work because of _you_? Can't you _listen_? Why don't you ever do as you are told? You're a right menace, and I have no idea why you keep persisting in being a musician if you can't even keep your mouth _shut_ and _do your job_!"

Shuichi's face fell, and his eyes turned ominously glossy. "I... I'm sorry," he whispered, got to his feet and walked away with hurried steps, disappearing among the trailers.

"_What_ is your problem?" I asked incredulously, "There was absolutely no reason for you to do that."

K gave me a sour look. "He is always doing what he isn't supposed to. It's about time that he learned."

"So now he can't talk to his boyfriend anymore?" I sat up, turning my face away from the sun to stare at him. "Have you completely lost the little bit of sense that you had? You can't _do_ this—you'll ruin the entire tour!"

"Do _what_? Try to make you act like you're professionals? It's a long shot, but I thought it would be worth it to give it a go."

"You can't keep this up, K! You can't crush everything that doesn't go your way. You can't control everything. You can't change us. This morning you let an entire group of people become unemployed because you were not willing to compromise."

His expression hardened. "Sometimes there is nothing for it. I had to do what I had to do."

"Because you are _such_ a great manager," I said sarcastically, standing up, "Everything you do is for your job. You don't care about the people you work with or who gets hurt by your actions. You don't care about Bad Luck, and you don't care the _least_ about Shuichi, Suguru, or me."

He shook his head. "Neither of you understand this. And don't you say that I don't care. I have worked my ass off for you people, so don't you go saying that I don't care."

"Well, you have a really funny way of showing it. Shuichi _needs_ Yuki. You know he does." I paused, looking down at my feet. "This isn't about Shuichi. This isn't about the crew. This isn't about the press. This is about _you_, and your petty control issues."

"No, it is about you learning what not to talk about in public places."

I looked up and met his eyes. "Funny how the only time something like this has leaked out was when I was talking to _you_, K," I said softly, "You're blaming other people for your own mistakes, and mine. It was a mistake thinking that anybody could understand. It was a mistake talking to you at all." I bent down to pick up mine and Shuichi's shoes. The leather was warm in my hands. I stepped up to him, tilting my head up to glare at him full on. "Leave Shuichi alone. If you have issues with me I'd prefer it if you'd talk to me about it."

I waited a few moments for his answer, but it never came. So I stepped around him, heading towards Shuichi's trailer, walking away from K's dejected expression, away from the tension, away from the sunshine and grass and K's scent of soap and cologne.

G.G.G.

My cuts itched excruciatingly. I was sitting in the small bathroom of the trailer later in the evening, staring at the electric light above the mirror, feeling my arm prickle. The bandage had gotten quite dirty today, spotted by grass and grime, but that's what one gets when spending a day outside with Shuichi. My clothes were in a similar state, my t-shirt had torn in the side, I had a scraped knee, and my hair was so tangled it really did resemble a birds' nest.

I unwound the gauze from around my arm,throwing it in the bin rather than trying to salvage it's pathetic state. There were more bandages in the world, and really, I didn't actually need it anymore. I just used it because otherwise I would run around scratching my cuts.

The itching really was unbearable. It was worse than usual. I couldn't possibly ignore it. I tried to scratch the skin between the cuts, but when the itching only got worse, I gave up trying to be careful. After only a few moments my entire arm was red and blood had started to seep from the now reopened wounds. The wounds were shallow, but it was _blood_.

I stopped, and sagged limply against the back of the toiletseat. The skin on my arm burned. I was so tired. I just wanted to curl up and sleep, and _forget_. However, reality wasn't that kind, so instead I just sat there, feeling sad and lost and empty, trying to hold back, well, everything.

I didn't hear the trailer door. I didn't know K was there until the nudged the bathroom door open and his expression turned shocked as he caught sight of me.

"Hiro, what are you _doing_?" he exclaimed, dumping something to the floor with a thump before falling to his knees in front of me, taking my arm into his hands.

"It's okay," I said lazily, closing my eyes, "No cutting. It was just itching."

He huffed, and I knew he was shaking his head. Yes, yes. Idiot boy. I know. I heard him move, turning on the water tap for a moment. My arms was still held tightly in his left hand. He nudged my knees apart, and settled on the floor in the V of my legs. I looked at him then, startled, but all I could see was his hair and a bit of his ear.

He rested my arm against my leg, and then he started cleaning it with a wet cloth.

"You scared me," he murmured, "Don't do it again."

"Okay," I whispered. I could have promised him a lot of things right then. I felt both hot and cold at once, his body just touching the insides of my thighs, his fingers circling my wrist, his breath on my skin. His hair tickling my nose, his scent surrounding me. So close. So warm.

So unreachable.

"I apologised to Shuichi," he said, turning away to wet the cloth again, "And then I had to call Yuki and apologise, so that Shuichi would accept my apology. He didn't care, of course, but that's Yuki for you." He turned his face towards me so that I could see him roll his eyes. "Sakano yelled at me. Suguru told me he'd yell at me too if he'd had a personal life, and then asked if I had some sherbet. Ekihu said 'Mr K, I think you need to work on your people skills'." He went back to carefully cleaning my arm.

I cleared my throat. "So, did you come to any conclusions?"

"Surprisingly, yes. I was being an arse." He turned to face me, the position bringing us so close that our noses were almost brushing. "I'm sorry."

I swallowed thickly, hoping that I wasn't blushing. "You're forgiven," I breathed.

He smiled, and concentrated on my arm again. I don't know if I breathed out in relief of disappointment. Being around him didn't make things easier. Rather quite the opposite. I would never get over him if I was to constantly remain in his presence.

"K, do you think—" I broke, off, closing my eyes, wondering how he would take this. If it wasn't better to stay silent and just endure it. His hand was like a branding iron on my arm, sending tingles running through my body. It wouldn't work. I just wouldn't _work_. I drew in a deep breath, the air sharp and chilly in my lungs. "Could I have Kenny staying with me instead?"

He looked up at me again, his expression unreadable. He threw the cloth on the sink, and silently picked up some new gauze that he started to wrap around my arm. My heart was acting as though it was trying to beat a hole through my chest.

"It's not that I don't like you," I said quickly, almost _too_ quickly, "It's just that Kenny—"

"—Is easier to be around." He gazed up at me, blue eyes bright. "It's okay." He looked down again, and then he grinned, "I won't break into tears yelling 'the boy doesn't like me!'"

I smiled back, but something twisted inside me. I wasn't so sure I wouldn't. He finished bandaging my arm, and gave it a little pat as he rose to his feet.

"There, all better," he said jovially, "I'll just grab my stuff and go tell Kenny, alright?"

I nodded silently, at which he smiled and left.

I closed my eyes once more, wondering if I had finally done the right thing, my thumping heart heavy in my chest.

G.G.G.

Kenny didn't comment on the changed plans, he simply settled on the spare bed that had been set up in a corner, kicked his bag beneath the bed, fluffed up his pillow, and started snoring.

In short: very anticlimactic.

There was no bickering, no strange looks. No awkward conversation where I was being coerced into spilling my secrets. No silly jokes about Eskimos. No K. It felt strangely empty.

Kenny snored. Loudly. Of course, that in itself could be quite bothersome if one was trying to sleep, but it had been hours since I went past hoping that I was going to fall asleep. No, I found Kenny's snoring to be a great relief. When he snored, not even I could hear my weak sobs.

Though, I could feel the pillow becoming wet and coarse beneath my face.

After an indeterminable amount of time I gave up, got up from bed, picked up my mobile, and went outside for a while, away from Kenny's snores and from the wet remnants of my misery.

Wiping the tears away from my face I dialed Yuji's number, looking up at the starlit sky, feeling goose bumps rising on my skin. It was quite chilly for only wearing a pair of thin cotton pyjama bottoms, but I didn't want to go back inside just yet.

I had to wait for quite a few signals before Yuji picked up, and when he did he sounded a bit distant.

"If you were trying for Pizza Hut—this isn't it."

"Hey Yuji," I said, feeling the tight knot I hadn't even known was in my stomach loosen up a little just at the sound of his voice.

"Hiro!" He said happily, "What's up, bro?" I thought it was night over there in Hamburgerland."

"Night it is, sleep I couldn't, and do not underestimate the power of the Big Mac."

"You're channeling Yoda. You've been there too long already." He paused. "So why are you calling in the middle of the night?"

"Oh, you know," I said lightly, "Life sucks. The sky is blue. K is an idiot."

He sighed. "Figures," he muttered. "What did he do this time?"

"Oh, nothing much. Sacked the crew. Made Shuichi cry—that's not very hard, mind you, but it was really bad. Made me feel... I don't know. I'm so confused."

"Well," Yuji said contemplatively, "K lives after that saying, how does it go now... oh, yes! 'A pretty face can say a thousand things, a nasty gun can say a million'."

"Yuji, that's not a saying."

"It isn't? It should be. Oh _crap_. I crashed."

"What?"

"She beats me every time! She's like the Mozart of video games."

That only increased my bewilderment. "Who is?"

"Maiko," he said, sounding as though it was something obvious that I should have known already.

"What's she doing at your place?" I asked, confused.

"Hang on, there's a sharp turn here—" There were some low screeching car noises that I could barely hear, and Yuji mumbling 'come on, come on' before he started talking to me again. "Actually, we're at your place. There's something wrong with the plumbing in my apartment. Maiko tried to help me, but then the place flooded, and the landlord was pissed off, so I'm crashing here for a while, bro."

"No, I meant, why is she with you?" I gave an involuntary shiver, squeezed the phone between my ear and my shoulder and rubbed my hands over my arms.

"Oh, we were feeling lonely, you know, two young angsty teenagers—"

"Yuji, you're 23."

"—without any lives to speak of, so we thought we should have a 'Woe is us, our brothers are in America'-fest."

"You're starting with that already? It took three weeks before you had the 'Hiro is not home to see my new wicked Fisherman's hat'-angst when the family went to Hokkaido and you had to stay home."

"It was not. It was the 'Hiro is not home to see my new wicked Fisherman's hat with that cool twisty feather thingy on top that looks sort of like Michael Jackson's nose but not quite'-angst. You really need to keep track of the things I tell yo— Hey! Stop that!" The last words were muffled, and I could hear some scuffling before Maiko's voice could be heard.

"I'll let you win if you give it to me." Two seconds later she was talking into the phone. "Hey, Hiro! I thought you might need somebody sane to talk to."

"It's not competing if you're not driving the car," I heard Yuji say in the background.

"I thought I should give you equal opportunity. I'm still not convinced you'll win," Maiko bit back, but I could hear that she was grinning. "So I hear K is giving you a hard time?"

"Quite. You might want to save your energy on that for Shuichi though." I tilted my head back, looking up at the stars. Even the sky looked cold. I shivered again.

"Nonsense," she huffed, "Shuichi will be over it in two seconds. _You_, however, you store it up. And then you brood. And then you angst," she said succinctly. And then she added, "You're a bit like a girl in that way, actually."

"My masculinity is better left unquestioned," I said tightly, decidedly not thinking about the tear trails which were still fresh on my face.

"Hiro, don't care about what K says. He's just tactless. _Very_ tactless. Don't let it get to you. You're a great guy. You're even in my top ten list."

"I... really don't want to know which kind of list it is, but thanks," I grinned. "Look, I'd better go sleep. I don't know what problems tomorrow will bring. It was good talking to you."

"Yeah, I'd better get back to beating Yuji at any and all video games," she said impishly, and with a softer voice she added, "Take care of yourself, Hiro."

"You too," I responded, "Bye."

"Bye." She hung up.

When I went to bed I fell asleep just a few moments after my head hit the pillow, in spite of Kenny's roaring snores.

G.G.G.

a/n: heh. another argument. oh, come on. it's K and Hiro. they argue. and once again I expressed my loony love for Yuji :P and Maiko! gosh, how I've missed her. :3 she is the sanest person in gravi, in my opinion. plus, she's such a total fangirl. anyway, Merry Christmas, everyone!

some statistics: this story is nearing 15 000 hits. O.O which is, just... wow. for such a small ship, it's... wow. thanks. each newly posted chapter gets 150-200 hits, and the average amount of reviews that they get is 6.7. however, that varies. the lowest number of reviews is 0, and the highest is 14 :3


	26. Penny Pincher

Summary: The tour of the US starts, with all the drama that comes with it.  
Notes: The word count for this chapter is 7200. This chapter tried to kill me, I just know it.

G.G.G.

K woke up feeling just as tired and dreary as he had when he went to bed the previous night. He had had to call Tohma in the middle of the night with an update of how things were going. He had made sure that an ad about immediate employment for crew members had been placed in the newspapers the previous day, and today they were going to have the interviews. He didn't like the speed with which they were going to have to evaluate the people who turned up for an interview—finding people you could trust wasn't easy in the music business, and even less so when you had a deadline to make.

There were other complications too, of course. The former crew had been paid directly by N-G, and K hadn't had to bother with any issues concerning their payment. Now, however, the crew would have to be paid with cash until their personal information had been gathered, which meant that he was supposed to give over 40 people their salaries and pay for all the sustenance needed until such time that Tohma could take over the reins again. Tohma had told him that the money should appear on his bank account sometime during the day, hopefully by morning.

It hadn't, and as K clutched the phone in his whitening fingers, closing his eyes and feeling a bit nauseous, listening to Tohma's voice telling him to start interviewing people anyway, he wondered if things were going to end up as pear-shaped as he feared.

He didn't tell Sakano. He didn't need the additional stress.

When K arrived in the canteen tent, having struggled on a shirt and trousers before he left his trailer (he hadn't had the strength to fiddle with shoes. What were shoelaces good for, anyway?), the remaining people were already gathered there, eating breakfast. He frowned, eyes moving swiftly over the faces. All except—

"Where's Hiro?"

"Cooking," Shuichi piped up, spooning sugar over his plate of food (and K tried hard not to think about the fact that it was egg and bacon), "You fired the chef."

"Right," K mumbled, looking at him blankly for a moment before he made his way over to the kitchen, rubbing his eyes tiredly. The morning sunlight combined with the white tent was so bright that it stung his eyes, and it was a relief to step into the kitchen trailer. However, the instant change from light to dark was so sudden that he didn't see Hiro right away, but rather fumbled forward into the trailer, holding on to the edge of the counter with one hand, the other one pressed over his eyes against the headache he could feel simmering just below the surface.

He could hear the kitchen fan a little bit ahead of him, and as he drew nearer he started to feel the heat coming from the cooker caress his skin. It felt oddly nice to be so close to the heat, like he had been chilled to the bone since winter and was finally getting completely warmed up. His toes tingled.

But maybe that was because Hiro had stepped on them. He grimaced, and let the hand slip from his face.

"Wasn't sure when you were planning on getting up, but I made pancakes for you," Hiro said, head tilted down, eyes focused on the pancakes in the frying pan in front of him.

"Thanks," K mumbled, turning slightly to grab a golden brown pancake from a plate next to the stove. "You're standing on my foot you know," he added conversationally.

Hiro glanced at him, a hint of a grin quirking in the corners of his mouth and eyes. "I am, am I?"

"Yep." K eyed the pancake in his hand. It was quite small. Maybe he could shove it all in his mouth in one go and save himself the bother of bringing his arm up and down for each bite. He glanced down at their feet, his bare ones and Hiro's sock-clad right foot that was warming K's toes. "You're still standing on my foot," he said lightly, more for something to say than that he wanted Hiro to move. It was quite nice, actually, having someone else warming his toes for once. He didn't like the feeling of wiggling toes between his fingers, and of course, it was impossible not to wiggle your toes while trying to warm them up.

"Well, you didn't tell me to move," Hiro answered, and this time there was a smile. His foot moved away, and K suddenly felt colder than he had before. He shook it off, took a bite out of the pancake (chewing the whole thing at once would be more bothersome than to lift his arm a few times, he decided), and for one second he was in heaven. He didn't know who had taught Hiro to make pancakes, but he was going to find out someday and pay homage to the God of Pancakes. For there was simply no other possibility. If he was on deathrow and was going to have his last supper, Hiro's pancakes were what he would ask for.

"These are so good," he moan—mumbled. _Mumbled_. He wolfed down the rest of the pancake, fighting back a most unseemly flush, then wiggled up to sit comfortably on the counter, pulling the plate filled with pancakes onto his lap, gazing adoringly at it. He heard Hiro snicker beside him, but he didn't tear his eyes away from the pancakes.

"There is maple syrup and butter if you'd like," Hiro said, amusement colouring his voice.

K nodded, and a can of syrup was pressed into his hand. He didn't wait a second to start pouring it over the plate, heedless of the fact that the syrup was going to overflow and drip down on his pants. He wasn't really aware when he put the syrup down, or rather, he wasn't aware of much of anything going on around him until he had cleared most of the plate and was licking his sticky fingers leisurely. He'd eaten without cutlery. Again. He sighed happily, picking up the last pancake with his thumb and index finger.

"You do know that you've made me unable to eat any other pancakes but yours without scowling, right?" He said wistfully, sparing Hiro a glance.

Hiro laughed, bumping K's leg with his hip. "You're welcome."

"And you just laugh at my misery," K sighed before he bit into the pancake reverently.  
It was sticky and sweet and _just_ as fluffy as it should be, it tasted like sunshine over white clouds. K knew that it didn't really make sense, but it always made him think about looking out over the clouds while flying. He closed his eyes, feeling the warmth of the stove beside him, Hiro's hip and thigh touching his calf lightly. His problems seemed to have dissolved in there, in the heat, in Hiro's calming presence, in the peace that rested over the room.

When K had swallowed down the last mouthful and was fastidiously licking his fingers clean, Hiro asked, "So, what's going to happen today?" and K had to take a bad trip back to reality.

"Interviews," he grumbled, feeling the tranquility that he'd been soaked in only a moment ago slip away as if he'd just stepped into a cold shower. "Ekihu is going to be with me. Try to keep yourselves occupied. Don't do anything stupid." He jumped down from the counter, wiping his hands on his already smeared pants and sauntered towards the door, feeling much better than he had when he entered. "Oh, and Hiro?"

Hiro, who was busy putting away the dishes, looked up at him. His eyes glinted in the light from the door. "Yeah?"

"Don't endanger Sakano's fragile mind."

"_Well_, I've _never_—"Hiro scoffed, paused, "On the other hand, maybe I have."

K shook his head fondly, a smile tugging at his lips. "I know. _Behave_." His eyes lingered on Hiro a little bit longer, then he stepped out into the tent, and silently bemoaned the fact that he had forgotten to bring his sunglasses.

G.G.G.

Two hours later K was sitting (looking a bit more presentable—_with_ shoes, thank you very much) in one of the furnished buses which were being used as living facilities for the crew, Ekihu at his side, going through what felt like the millionth interview that day. It had been a little bothersome as Ekihu's English was passable, but not terrific, and at times K had to translate entire answers into Japanese for him. The girl who was sitting facing them on the other side of the table looked to be of a decent sort, though she was moving nervously, twisting her hands together in her lap, averting her eyes to the table now and then, a slight blush staining her cheeks. Obviously shy. Probably a hard worker if she was just told what to do.

K looked down at the paper in front of him as if consulting it for questions. He was more stalling than actually reading the questions though, because the short sentences had etched themselves into his memory already, repeating in his mind over and over again, spilling almost automatically over his lips as though he was some kind of interview robot that only had the appearance of a human being. He stared listlessly down at the paper. The lower edge had curled a bit where he had worried it with his thumb. He was just about to stretch his thumb out to do it again when Ekihu elbowed him in the side and cleared his throat. Right. Interview.

K looked up at the girl again, who was looking rather embarrassed by now. The silence _would_ be rather oppressing, he figured. He couldn't remember her name. Had he asked for her name? Had she told them her name when she was greeting them? He could see Ekihu moving to elbow him once more, and he gave a wince, wondering just how large the bruise on his side would be when they were done for the day. Bracing himself from the pain he wondered if it really hadn't been worth it to ask for her name and seem stupid instead of having to endure Ekihu's sharp elbow. Maybe the other one wasn't _as_ sharp. He decided to suggest that they switch seats later.

Just when he thought he was going to be given another blow, the trailer door opened, and Ekihu's movement stilled. K breathed out silently in relief and turned to welcome the intruder. His expression turned quizzical when he saw that it was Hiro who had just stepped into the bus, looking happy and windswept, his hair in artful disarray, his clothes slightly bunched up in odd places. For a moment he looked like a giddy little boy. A giddy little boy in a very attractive nineteen-year-old body, but still.

"Hiro. What have _you_ been doing?" K asked as Hiro approached them and asked for the girl to budge over before he sat down next to her.

"Had to wrestle Shuichi for the x-box console," he said carelessly, as if that was what _normal_ musicians did everyday, "He broke the other one."

K quenched a grin. "So, who won?"

Hiro smirked. "Suguru. He wasn't busy wrestling."

K was just about to voice his lack of surprise at the outcome, but Ekihu interrupted. "Nakano-san," he interjected, his voice slightly tense, "Is there anything in particular that you wanted to discuss?"

"Actually, there is," Hiro said pleasantly, putting his hands on top of each other on the table, "I want to go and buy a new console for Shuichi."

K didn't even hesitate. "No."

Hiro didn't seem surprised. In fact, his expression was stoically passive as he spoke again. "This is a peace mission. It is imperative to the continued well-being of everybody in this camp. It is for the preservation of sanity of all."

"No." K sat back in his seat, crossed his arms over his chest, and stretched out his legs in front of himself beneath the table. He couldn't stretch them very far though, because Hiro's legs turned out to be in the way, and he suspected that a battle for space beneath the table would thoroughly undermine his authority.

"Why not?" Hiro's head jerked in frustration.

"It could be _dangerous_," K answered forcefully, but couldn't help but feel like it was weak argument. Ekihu nudged him in the side, and K flinched as the tender spot was worried.

"He is right, you know," Ekihu said, in that infuriatingly reasonable tone he only used when he thought K was being an idiot. K glared at him with a sour expression, and didn't say anything.

Hiro's eyes narrowed. "Tell you what, I'll let you think about it." He settled in a stance uncannily similar to the one K himself was in and stared at K unwaveringly for a few moments.

"Just let him go," Ekihu grumbled in a low voice, turning to arrange the already neatly piled documents in front of him into a new neat pile.

K still didn't speak. Sighing, Hiro cut the eye-contact, but instead of admitting defeat and getting out of the trailer, he turned to the girl who was sitting beside him and sent her a little smile.

"So, you're here for the job?" he asked in perfect smooth English, tilting his head slightly.

The girl nodded, pink-cheeked, twirling a lock of blonde hair in her fingers. "Yeah," was her breathless response.

"Not much else to do during the holidays, huh?" Hiro asked chattily, uncrossing his arms and turning his body slightly towards her.

"Oh, I don't know", she said, shrugging, "I just thought this could be exciting. If I get the job I might be able to mess up entire concerts. Who wouldn't want that kind of opportunity?" She was definitely _not_ going to get the job, K decided. He would burn her application _personally_. A pleased smirk was starting to twitch at the corners of his mouth, but it died instantly the moment he heard Hiro snicker.

"I like your style. What's your name?"

"Alison," she said, her tone far too similar of that of a simpering fan than K felt was appropriate. He wanted to scowl, and twirl his magnum menacingly in his hands, but he stayed in the same faux-relaxed position, forcing his expression to stay blank.

Hiro smiled at her, that easy, bright, almost sleepy smile, the one where he lowered his lashes slightly, and his dimples showed. K could _see_ the moment she fell for him, how her breath caught, how she looked away quickly as she blushed, how she trembled for a second before she smiled back at him.

"K, wouldn't Alison here be perfect for the job?" Hiro said, not taking his eyes away from her.

Something swelled in K then, something pressing, dark, angry, and painful. He swallowed, shifting his legs. "I suppose," he said gruffly, reluctantly, "But we haven't even started the—"

"Great," Hiro cut him off, eyes flashing dangerously at K, "That's settled then."

"—Interview," K finished lamely.

"So, can I go?" Hiro asked quickly, once again in Japanese.

K blinked. Then he scowled. "_Fine_," he almost growled, "But there will be no morning lie-ins until the next official holiday. And Shuichi's made up ones do not count. 'Flashy Shoesday Tuesday' is still _very_ fresh in my mind."

Hiro got to his feet, a grin once again plastered to his face. "Wouldn't dream of it," he winked. He turned to Alison, who was looking at them like somebody who had just missed the gist of a very important scene in a movie. K tried not to feel smug.

"See you around, Alison." Hiro drawled, raising a hand in goodbye, and sauntered out, whistling cheerily on _Three Little Birds_.

K's forced calm broke when the door closed after Hiro, and he waved his hand at Alison—who was looking at the door rather dreamily—in a dismissive manner. "Alright, you heard him. You got the job. Next!"

Alison's eyes grew wide for a moment, before she gave a mumbled assent and climbed out of her seat.

"Welcome to the team, Miss," Ekihu beamed as she made to leave them, and she gave him an answering smile as she walked out the door. K, intently following Alison's departure with his eyes, did not notice Ekihu's arm moving until it was too late.

"Aoch!" he yelped, rubbing the spot that Ekihu had just elbowed once more, "What was that for? I didn't even _do_ anything!"

Ekihu's mouth twisted. "That one was preventative," he stated, jotting down some notes on Alison's application.

"Can we switch seats?" K said slowly, in his best innocent voice.

"No," Ekihu replied without looking up.

The door creaked. K sighed and shifted his gaze to the man who had just stepped inside, eying him critically. He was dressed in green from head to toe, had green-dyed hair, green make-upped face, and green accessories. He would have been the obvious choice, had they been searching for a shrubbery. K almost whimpered.

It was going to be a long day. A very, _very_ long day.

G.G.G.

K didn't eat lunch that day. Tohma called just as K and Ekihu were wrapping up the results of the interviews and had laid the most interesting applications in a separate pile. K felt quite alleviated when he answered the call, having taken care of one of the problems that had been laid before him. He should have known that there was a greater one waiting just around the corner.

Tohma's voice was as straightforward as always, the information given in a solemn soft tone. "The bank encountered some trouble. The money won't be transferred. They will try to rectify the problem tomorrow, but the transfer won't happen until after the weekend. You will have it by Tuesday, at best."

K ended the call without responding. Then he switched his phone off.

A heavy weight settled in his stomach, and he staggered out of the stuffy trailer without answering Ekihu's worried "What is the matter, K-san?" He could feel a migraine coming on, and he wanted to be alone to savour it. After all, it wasn't every day that several months worth of work went down the drain in just thirty seconds.

G.G.G.

He was lying on the bed in his trailer, rubbing his temples and moaning pitifully when Hiro came bursting through the door, bringing with him a bright curtain of sunlight that made K's head pound even more intensely.

"Close the door," he grumbled, and tried to hide his face in the pillow.

The door closed with a rubbery squeak, and steps padded dully over the carpeted floor. "Ekihu said that the interviews went well," Hiro said softly, flopping down on his side next to K on the bed, accidentally bumping his arms against the bruise that Ekihu's elbow had caused on K's side. K flinched. "Which makes me wonder what's bothering you."

K sighed and shook his head into the pillow. A second later Hiro's hand came to rest on his shoulder.

"Come on, K," Hiro prodded.

K turned to lie on his side to squint at Hiro, unsettling the hand on his shoulder, which slid down over his chest before Hiro had time to pull away. It left a warm imprint in its wake, but K decided that ignoring it was the best way to go about it.

"Just... Can we _not_ talk?" he said, starting to make out Hiro's facial features in the relative darkness caused by the blinds.

"Okay," Hiro agreed easily, "I'll just take a nap then." He curled together slightly, tucking his legs closer to his body and laying his arms in front of his torso. It looked a little like he was cradling his bandaged left arm, and K just looked at Hiro as he settled in for some impromptu sleep.

The only sound that disturbed the silence for several minutes was Hiro's low soft breathing. K lay looking at him for a long time after his eyes had adjusted to the darkness, and the lines of Hiro's face were sharp and shadowed. His headache had dulled in intensity, and coherent thought was starting to make its way through his mind.

The night before he had almost panicked when he opened Hiro's bathroom door and caught sight of Hiro sitting slumped over the toiletseat, arm covered in a glaring red colour, but he had clamped down on his nerves enough to clean Hiro up and do what he had come to do—apologise. It had turned out that the blood was just from shallow reopened wounds, and that it wasn't actually dangerous, but the hollow feeling in K's stomach hadn't abated for several hours afterward.

Hiro looked peaceful. K knew he wasn't, of course, knew that his misery stretched far beyond what eyes could behold, but for that one moment, curled up on K's bed, eyelashes dark smudges against his cheeks, Hiro seemed at peace. He looked as though he was safe and sheltered and thought nightmares were just tales from a land far away. Hiro looked, K thought, as though he was _home_.

Ridiculous notion though it was, K quite liked the thought that Hiro could let his shields go around him. That he knew that K would never let anything happen to him while he was vulnerable. Almost on its own accord, K's hand slid over the sheets between them and came to rest lightly on Hiro's bandaged arm. The bandages were soft, and he could feel the tiny squared pattern with his fingertips.

K was almost startled when Hiro's right hand slid on top of his own, and his gaze darted to Hiro's face, but Hiro's eyes were still closed. K lay like that for a long while, eyes skimming over the relaxed planes of Hiro's face, his hand enclosed in the tingling warmth between Hiro's hand and arm.

Eventually he started talking. He didn't know if Hiro was asleep or not—he didn't react—but K wanted to tell him anyway, whether he could hear it or not. "The money won't be transferred," he began slowly, turning his head so that he didn't have his face half-way buried in the pillow, "Tohma called to tell me. NG used to pay the old crew directly. Now that we're rehiring the new crew is supposed to get paid through me," he paused, sighed, and closed his eyes, "There was some bank mess up, and now the money won't be transferred for several days. We have to cut down on _everything_, and even then, it won't be enough. So, basically, we don't have enough money to start the tour."

Hiro's fingers curled around K's hand, fingertips just touching the palm of his hand, right next to the thumb, but he didn't speak or give any other indication that he had heard.

"And even if the money hadn't been a problem, the crew would still take much longer setting the stage. I mean, the last crew knew how to set it up, and most times we were _still_ behind on schedule. I just... I hate to admit it, but I don't know what to do." He fell silent again, and the quiet stretched out for several long minutes. Something settled heavily in K's stomach, and he grit his teeth together against the frustration he felt over being completely powerless. He was a man of action, of solution and compromise, but there was nothing he could do.

"You know," Hiro said, eyes flickering open to gaze lazily at K, "There is a great invention called the 'credit card'. There is an even greater invention called 'American Express'. Just get Tohma to pay the bill." He closed his eyes again, thumb moving soothingly over the back of K's hand. "About the crew; it won't be the same. We all know that. But there are still a few people here who know how to set up the scene. We have been around while the old crew worked, and we wouldn't mind helping. It's _all_ our tour, so don't try to deal with everything by yourself."

K pushed himself up on his elbow. "You make everything sound so easy," he said lowly.

Hiro smiled, and K could see the shadowed indentation of a dimple even in the very dim light. "Because it _is_ that easy."

K sat up quickly, pushing the bed covers away, pulling his hand away from Hiro's arm. Hiro's eyes opened, wide and dark, something slipping from his face in a mere second, his expression curling into itself, hiding. It was almost tangible, K could almost _feel_ how Hiro pulled away, and it made him want to cry out and reach out and hold Hiro close, try to meld the peaceful expression onto his face once more. But he did nothing. The moment was lost.

"You're brilliant, Hiro," he said, relief and _something else_ swimming and mixing inside him, and he leaned down to place a quick warm kiss on Hiro's cheek.

Hiro froze for a second. "I'm glad you noticed," he responded, turning his face into the pillow.

K whispered "Thank you," over his shoulder as he left the trailer to go call Tohma, conflicting emotions pulling at him. He was certain that something had just happened in there, he just didn't know _what_.

G.G.G.

The next two days were frantic. The first concert was to be held on the Saturday night, and people were running around like scalded chickens to the directions of K, Ekihu, Kenny, Hiro, Suguru and Sakano. Shuichi had taken it upon himself to hand out juice packages to those who seemed to be in need, after K had forbidden him from going near anything that could potentially fall on him. They were hot days, and K wondered if he had ever wiped his brow with such frequency before in his life.

It was hard work, but it needed to be done, and after the first day of running about, both doing manual labour and directing other people doing manual labour, K sunk into his bed after a quick shower, feet sore and aching, and slipped into sleep minutes after he had taken a horizontal position.

The new chef only made American food, and while K didn't really mind the type of food, he was distinctly disappointed in the breakfast courses. He didn't like porridge (never had, no matter how many times during his youth his mother had placed a plate with said substance in front of him and uttered the words "It's good for you."), egg and bacon didn't agree with him in the mornings, and the pancakes _weren't Hiro's_. He'd had half a mind to make Hiro take command over the kitchen, but he needed him more for organizing the crew, so he tried to put pancakes out of his mind and nibbled his toast while downing an infinite number of cups of coffee.

Alison, who had been like a needle in K's eye had turned out to be a fantastic crew worker. She learned quickly and was surprisingly efficient, and it tore in K's soul when he had to give a grumbled assent as Ekihu commented "She's the best recruit of the lot."

In the end, they had been working on the preparations right up until the very last minute, and Hiro and Suguru had had to change in thirteen minutes flat, resulting in that they entered the stage slightly flustered and ruffled, not having been able to breathe out at all from the day's activities. Shuichi had taken it easy, as K had prohibited him from doing much, and had followed K around at length, pouting, until K had ordered him to go warm up his voice instead.

The three stepped out into the spotlights amidst a roar of voices, and K could feel the thick atmosphere thumping in his veins. It was Hiro who took the centre mic first, greeting the audience and introducing the band, his demeanour gentle and charming, eyes sparkling. He looked alive, K thought. But then, that wasn't quite right, he amended, Hiro didn't just look alive, he looked like he was truly _living_. Like the rhythm of the song was the pulse of his life, and he reached completion on the stage, a degree of fulfillment that he couldn't achieve in any other circumstances.

Hiro gave up the mic to Shuichi after a few moments, going to the side of the stage to his own microphone, and they began playing. After three songs and some of Suguru's accented chatting, K ordered a crew worker who didn't have anything at hand for the moment to check that everything still was in order, as he himself went to gaze out at the crowd from the very edge of the stage where he was hidden in darkness, and the spotlights couldn't inhibit his vision.

There was a sea of faces, swaying arms, movements like ripples among the bodies. K could vaguely make out the facial features of the people closest to the stage, but he could not tell the difference between one face and the next. It all blurred together into one anonymous cluster, and he stopped looking at their faces, his gaze lingering instead on the large banners which were scattered here and there, bearing Bad Luck's or its members' names on them, with proclamations of love and adoration, and one that particularly caught K's eye sporting the words 'Marry me, Hiroshi!'.

The rest of the concert flew by, and to everybody's enormous relief everything went smoothly. When the band at last stumbled off the stage, the sound of applauds following in their wake, K walked up to them and put his arms out to support Suguru and Hiro, who both looked ready to collapse in exhaustion any moment. It had been stressful for them, having to work such long hours with things they usually only had observed and not partaken in, and then having to get up on stage and do their usual job, with the addition that they had to take some of Shuichi's limelight since he was not very proficient at English. They had made it—and gallantly at that, but up close K could see the fatigue written in their faces.

"You two are going to bed immediately," he said in his 'no nonsense' voice, and they agreed silently as he slung his arms around their shoulders and steered them away towards the exit. Shuichi stayed behind, and K whispered "No sugar," to Sakano as the producer passed them when he went to check the instruments. Sakano nodded quickly, and K left with Hiro and Suguru leaning against him heavily.

When they had driven back the few miles they had to camp, Hiro shook himself up and helped K get an almost unconscious Fujisaki out of his show clothes and into bed, removing sweat and smeared make-up from his face.

Kenny showed up with Shuichi in tow a few minutes later, Shuichi complaining loudly about not having been allowed his post-concert pocky.

"Are you okay?" K asked Hiro as he steeled himself for carting Shuichi off to his trailer.

"I'm fine," Hiro mumbled, rubbing his eyes and smudging the eyeliner.

K left Hiro in Kenny's able hands, and forcibly steered Shuichi to his trailer. His hand rested on his gun the entire time it took for Shuichi to get ready for bed and slip under the covers.

G.G.G.

The following day the headline in the newspaper read: "Bad Luck takes America – opening night success!"

K smiled and breathed out in relief.

G.G.G.

The days rushed past, with moving from city to city, setting up and taking apart the stage (it was easier and so much quicker in the cities where they had a concert hall booked and they only had to add the finishing details), concerts, practicing, phone calls, and fending off eager fans. K only managed to talk Hiro into making him pancakes _once_ during the following two weeks, and so the breakfast continued to be the bleak point of the day.

They fell into routine again; Shuichi and Suguru spent many hours in the 'arcade' in Shuichi's trailer, playing video games and teaching each other new curses, Sakano had a near brush with a panic attack at least once a day, the crew settled into the lifestyle of being on the road, K started feeling on top and in control again, and Hiro... Well, Hiro, as always, was an enigma.

A very charming and talented enigma, but still an enigma. He seemed to be doing better though, in K's opinion. He'd been in a very fragile state of mind the first days after K had picked him up at the hospital; easily agitated, constantly frustrated, prone to tears. It appeared as though he had reached some sort of equilibrium where his old self shone through again, and sometimes when he smiled, K would hope that he was happy again, even if it only was for a moment.

As the days ticked on, K started to grow more and more excited. They were steadily moving up the West coast, nearing Helena (Montana) and the one week mid-tour break, during which the band and K would fly to New York to visit K's home while the crew made its way over to Chicago for the second part of the tour.

K was going home to see his family. Of course, nowadays the apartment in Tokyo had taken over the title of 'home' in his mind, but Judy and Michael were living in the large house north of New York, and where his family was, there he belonged. It had been over three months since he'd seen Michael and Judy, three months of no weekend visits, of hard work, touring, and planning. Three months of very short sporadic telephone calls where Michael's tiny voice whispered "Papa?" from across the Pacific Ocean.

He missed them. He had grown used to being apart from them—his and Judy's jobs being what they were—but he never stopped wanting to be around them, hear Judy's tinkering laughter, feel her soft curves pressed against his body, tuck Michael into bed and tell him stories. He missed soft wispy child hair, and a warm little pyjama-clad body curled up and asleep in his arms on the living room couch, a small mouth sucking on an equally little thumb.

He used to put it out of his mind by burying himself in his work, by occupying his mind with less painful thoughts. He wondered sometimes if he took managing too far. It had come naturally with Ryuichi. He had _had_ to take care of Ryuichi in every way, because Ryuichi had needed it. Then he'd had Michael, and he had wanted to protect him and make sure that everything was perfect for his little work of wonder. When he had started to work with Bad Luck, well... He had needed to take care of them, _needed_ it—like other people need air he had needed to shelter and protect.

Of course, the way in which he protected and took care of the members of Bad Luck was very different from the way he had with Ryuichi and Michael. They were adults for goodness sake, and they didn't need anybody babying them. Still, he had—to a degree. He made sure Shuichi had pocky and clean clothes at all times, he got Suguru's favourite brand of sherbet when he was depressed, he woke them, he told them what to do (which inevitably resulted in them not listening to him, and him yelling at them), he made sure they ate, he made sure they never went unprotected at any time.

And yet, he had failed to protect Hiro.

He didn't understand what he had done wrong. He hadn't known that the one person who would come to hurt Hiro would be Hiro himself. It made K realise that he didn't understand Hiro at all, and while K had been building up protection walls, what was kept inside the walls had self-destructed.

K's universe had been shaken around rather badly, and with the beautiful scenery passing by outside the car windows as they made their way north, K was glad that he would be with his family soon. Without them, K's life just didn't make any sense.

G.G.G.

On the morning of the last day before the break, K had to pick a lock. Shuichi had stolen his keys the night before as he went to bed, and while K hadn't been bothered as the keys were stolen (in plain view), it was with mounting frustration that he eventually gave up on the hair-pin and the lock, and went to borrow Ekihu's duplicate keys. The band members were grumpy as he woke them, glaring at him sleepily as he stared intently at them over the dark metal of his gun.

Sleepy glares, K found, while menacing, were not frightening in the least.

Hiro was especially hard-woken that morning, though it couldn't be compared to Shuichi, on any level. Shuichi was just too extreme. The optimal way of waking Shuichi was to shove a package of pocky into his mouth before he had time to complain or protest, and steer him in the direction of his clothes as the sugar rush took hold.

K kneeled on Hiro's bed, pressing cold metal against Hiro's pillow-creased cheek, and said, "Good morning."

Hiro grumbled and swatted at the gun in his face without opening his eyes.

"Wake up, Hiro," K added, a bit sharper.

Hiro's eyes opened a tiny crack. "You know," he said, voice gruff and husky with sleep, "I could have lived happily for the rest of my life never having been woken up at gun point again. Now I'll never know." He rolled over, turning his back to K, and pressing his face into the pillow.

"You're such comedians, the lot of you," K said dryly, "Suguru said, quote, 'If I'm never woken with a gun pointed at my head ever again, it will be too early,' end quote, and when I asked Shuichi why you three are the _only_ ones who don't get up in the mornings, he said that you do it so that I won't run out of work."

Hiro turned and blinked at him. "That is true, you know."

K scowled. "There are plenty of things that I could do in the mornings."

"Uh-huh," Hiro's mouth twisted into a hint of a smirk, "Like what?"

K shrugged. "Drink coffee. Attempt to look human before ten AM. Drool a bit."

"Ah, yes. Matters of such importance should never be neglected."

K sniffed. "You're mocking me, aren't you?"

"Yes," Hiro grinned, "But I do that so well."

"That is up for discussion. However, what is _not_ up to discussion is that you're getting out of bed. Right this minute." He patted Hiro's cheek with the side of the gun.

"What if I don't have any underwear on?" Hiro stalled, "And all I'm wearing is this skimpy little pyjama top?"

"Then I'd get an eyefull. Lucky me. The fangirls would be so jealous," K deadpanned. "So, shall I tear the sheet from your body like a ruffian who hasn't gotten laid for three months—which, in fact, I haven't—or will you get up willingly?"

Hiro sighed. "Hold your horses, I'm getting up." He sat up, rubbing his eyes and shoving the covers away from his body, baring his pyjama-pant clad legs to the world.

"Not starkers, then," K commented, standing up, "And I had just gotten my hopes up."

G.G.G.

The concert that night passed without any major incidents. Shuichi had started to learn a little English (which he wasn't afraid to show off), though not much, but the interaction on stage flowed more easily when he could understand a little of what Suguru and Hiro were saying to the audience. It was amazing, K thought, how much musicians could develop by performing in other countries. Bad Luck was knitting even closer together than it already was, forming a kind of harmony through unity, their interaction so completely at level that there was no need for any hesitation. It was highly gratifying for K to see them performing so well.

After the show was over and the band had trooped off stage sweaty and tired, they hung around as the crew started packing things away, as there wouldn't be much time for goodbyes the following morning, since they were to leave at the crack of dawn. K was hovering with Ekihu over at the refreshments table, going over final details in low voices. They had decided to leave Kenny with Ekihu if any lingual problems arose on the way to Chicago, and the person (besides Kenny) K thought would have been most affected by this decision—Hiro—had merely shrugged and said that he didn't mind when he'd been told.

Shuichi had walked off with his cellphone pressed against his ear muttering, "Come on, Yuki, pick up," Hiro was chatting animatedly with Alison and another girl over by the ropes to the lighting, Sakano was stammering trying to tell a group of crew members how much he appreciated all the hard work they'd done for them so far, and Suguru sidled up to K, keyboard case in his hands, and slowly let his gaze sweep over the clusters of people.

"I don't know if I should be happy or sad that I am pathetic enough not to have anybody I feel I just _have_ to call right now," he said pensively.

"You don't want to be part of a happy couple?" K asked, waving vaguely in Shuichi's direction.

Suguru smiled. "Oh, a happy couple, sure, but not an incomprehensible one." He shrugged, "Besides, I don't have much time to do 'happy coupling' anyway."

"One day, Fujisaki-kun," Ekihu said, eyes twinkling, "You will find a nice girl, and you will _make_ the time."

"And then lots of _happy coupling_ will hopefully occur," K interjected with a leer.

Shuichi who had just walked up to them looked at him skeptically with his head tilted to the side. "K, you are lame," he said with a plain tone, as if stating something obvious. He turned to Suguru. "You know, Maiko doesn't have a boyfriend. And she's never said she has anything against men who are partial to ice-cream."

Suguru released a put upon 'oh, what I have to suffer' sigh and rolled his eyes. "Sherbet, Shuichi, _sherbet_."

G.G.G.

K unbuckled the belt and turned his legs slightly to the side, curling up beneath the blue blanket. Hiro was already sleeping silently beside him, the cheese bun lying on the pulled-down tray in front of him still ensconced in the shiny plastic wrapping.

The lights in the airplane were dim, and as K was slowly lulled to sleep by the warmth, the snores, and the steady movement, he happily noted that when he woke up in only a couple of hours, he would be _home_.

G.G.G.

a/n: that's all for this time. I hope you enjoyed it, and don't forget to comment ;) hits count is up at 16 000 now O.o and the total word count is over 50 000 words.


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